Finding Our Way Back Home
by Belleian2405
Summary: I know that I am not alone in wanting a completely different ending for season 4, so I felt that I just had to write something to fix the horrible mistake. Still takes place one year after their wedding but before Veronica decides to leave town. LoVe always
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

One year. That's how long it has been since my world came crashing down. One year since I saw his face, heard him laugh, felt his touch and even though it has been a year, I still wake up every morning and have to remind myself how to breathe again. My wedding day was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. A new beginning for Logan and me. I had my moment of clarity and realized that it didn't matter how all of the other marriages that I'm surrounded by had failed because as long as I had Logan then I knew we would be ok, but then it was all taken away from me by the stupid act of a selfish person. Which let's be honest here, my life has been plagued with devastation brought on by stupid acts from selfish people.

Nothing can compare though to the utter despair that I felt the second the bomb went off and took him away from me. I know what you are thinking...I'm Veronica Mars and nothing can break me, but oh how wrong you are.

That bomb shattered me into so many pieces that I'll never be able to even find them all to put my life back together. Because now when I look back, I realize how much Logan was the glue that kept me together. Without him I don't know how to even begin to pick up the pieces and honestly without him, it all feels pointless anyways.

Everywhere I look, all I see are memories of him and I and the life that we had built together. This life that was taken away far too soon and everywhere I look all I do is feel regret. Regret for the arguments that I wish I could take back and the times when I should have just stayed instead of walking out and running from him. I spent so much time running from him and now I would give anything to have one more chance to run to him and never let go.

So every morning I wake up and I go through the motions of everyday life and every morning I don't know how I am going to make it through without him, but somehow I do.

One year, how has it been one year. So much has changed in that year. Neptune isn't the same place it was a year ago when he was taken from me. It's all being upgraded and renovated to be able to accommodate the extravagantly wealthy. I did get to keep our apartment though. At first, they tried to say that I would need to leave because they were not going to allow for the rent-controlled apartment that made it possible for me to be able to afford it. However, as a "thank you" for once again saving the town and a "we are so sorry for your loss", I was allowed to stay.

So that is how Pony and I are sitting on the beach in front of our little apartment. While watching the waves, I try to close my eyes and picture that it has all just been a horrible nightmare and I am going to wake up, open my eyes, and his tanned and toned body is going to be walking out of the surf towards me. If only that was true. 

As I sit here and remember what was and curse what could have been, I realize I can't stay here anymore. I have to get out, and try and escape all of the memories of him and I. I make my decision and know that it has to be today. I can't wait one more day now that my mind has been made up.

I decide that I'm going to take one more walk down the beach with Pony before I leave. One more time to feel the sun on my face and hear the waves crashing and feel that connection to Logan that seems to be slipping away more and more each day.

We start our walk and Pony starts to whine and pull away from me to go back, but I urge her on. We walk for what seems like forever and then I stop, take a deep breath, savor this last moment, whisper a tear choked "Happy Anniversary" and then I turn around to leave.

As we are walking back Pony again starts to whine and is pulling me along the beach faster than I have ever felt her tug before. I try to control her, but as Logan used to love to say, I'm just a tiny blonde one, so Pony definitely is winning this game of tug of war.

I'm so focused on making sure I don't fall flat on my face and end up eating sand, that I'm not even paying attention to what she is so intent on dragging me to. Finally, I give up and just let her go to investigate whatever she is determined to get to. I know she will come back once she is done and I'm too tired to keep fighting her on it.

I'm still walking with my head down wondering what has got her so wound up, but realize she must have gotten to her prize because she is no longer running. However, she is still whining and whimpering those happy puppy whimpers that come when they have found something long lost. Before I can look up to see what her has whimpering like this, I hear it, "Veronica."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Two

"Veronica" it sounds so real, so much like his voice that it makes my heart ache. I don't even look up because I know it isn't real. I think to myself, "Good job Veronica, you have officially lost it."

This is a new low for me because I can't seem to convince myself that I'm just hearing things. It sounded just like him. At least when I hear and talk to Lily, I know that it is all in my head.  
However, right now I can't seem to convince my head or my heart that this is all just a part of my cruel imagination and then I hear it again. "Veronica look at me."

I still can't do it though. If I look up and he's not there I will be crushed, but if I look up and he is there it won't be any better. I will know then that I am damaged beyond all compare because I am hallucinating my dead husband and actually think he is there.

As I continue to stare at the sand, Pony makes her way over to me and starts to rub her head in my hand. I look at her and as she is urging me to look up and move forward, I hear "Veronica please."

I lose any willpower I have remaining to fight the hallucination and I look up. When I do, my heart can't comprehend what my brain is telling it is there. He's standing there in uniform looking so amazing and so real.

It seems so different from when I see Lily. It's not the shimmery translucent shape in front of me that appears when I am talking to her. 

He looks so real and so solid. I try to convince myself to stop thinking he is there because I am just hurting myself more, but then he steps forward and takes my hand.

As soon as his skin hits mine, I feel that spark that occurs every time we touch and he says "it's real, I'm here."

That moment is when I crumble. I fall to the ground and am shaking with uncontrollable sobs. I'm sobbing as I try to make sense of what is going on.

This can't be happening. He is gone. I heard the explosion and felt the windows shatter and pieces of glass cut my face. There is no way he could have survived. There wasn't even anything to bury. Just an empty casket and a folded up American flag that was handed to me with their deepest condolences. He kneels in front of me and tries to pull me into his arms and comfort me, telling me "it's ok, I'm here now."

I push away and stand up. I aggressively start wiping the tears from my eyes and yelling "This isn't real! This can't be possible! You died! You are gone!"

He starts to move towards me again and I look into his eyes and see utter confusion and hurt. I stare at him while still trying to stop the endless flow of tears that are running down my face to no avail.

As I look at him, he starts rambling, "What do you mean? You know I wasn't really gone. They were supposed to tell you after the funeral. They just needed it to look real, so they had to wait until after the funeral. After the press was gone. They were supposed to tell you."

He reaches for me and I recoil again. It is then that I see the tears well up in his eyes and he says, "They didn't tell you." It's a statement this time and he knows now why I keep pulling away from his touch.

As I stand there and continue to stare while I cry, I see the silent tears start to fall from his eyes. We make eye contact and he says, "Sugarpuss, please."

It is then that I lose any resolve that I have remaining and fling myself into his arms. I jump and he catches me. My legs wrap around his body, while one of his hands goes around my waist and the other comes up to cradle my neck and tangle his fingers in my hair. He is kissing the side of my head over and over as I cling to him and sob. I am squeezing him so hard that I feel like my muscles might break as I breath in the scent that is "Logan."

We stay like that for what feels like forever, clinging to each other while he continues to place tender kisses on my head. I can't seem to make myself let go or move forward from that spot. The sun has almost set, and I know we should be going inside but I fear if I let him go, I will lose him again and I'm just not willing to take that chance. So, he carries me off the beach and up the stairs to our tiny apartment just as he has done so many times before.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Three

Once we are inside, I still can't bring myself to actually let him put me down. My legs are shaking from the muscle fatigue that is a result of me clinging to him so hard, but I don't care. I fear that if I let go then it will all be over. He will disappear and I will wake up from this beautiful dream and be shattered again.

I know he can sense this, so he just continues to hold me. It isn't until Pony starts to whine because she wants her leash off that he makes a move to try and release himself from my grasp. He removes his hand that is cradling my neck and gently tries to put me down. I whimper and pull myself even closer. My head resting on his shoulder while my nose nuzzles his neck.

Pony whines again, as she has now completely tangled herself in her leash and can't seem to get it unwrapped from her own legs. Logan places both hands gently on my hips and urges me to pull away just far enough so if I were to lift my head, I could look in his eyes. I slowly lift my head enough that he can soothingly talk right by my ear and he somehow convinces me that I don't have to let go, he just needs me to put my feet on the ground so he can help Pony.

Reluctantly I unwrap my legs and feel my shoes hit the floor. I still haven't let go, but he manages to gently move me to his side, the whole time allowing me to keep my arms wrapped around him. He helps Pony to correct the awkward position she has herself in with her leash and then wraps his arms back around me again.

My brain finally starts to clear from the daze that was induced as soon as I heard him say my name and that's when I start to question again how this is possible. This can't be real. If he was alive this whole time, then why didn't he contact me. A year! He has had a year to let me know that he is alive, and I have been so miserable thinking he was gone.

I start to panic as feelings that this is just a dream, or a hallucination start to resurface. My mind is going crazy thinking that I can't go through this again. It will be like the day the bomb went off and I will have to relive all that pain again. Maybe this is what my life will be from now on. Just a continuous cycle of heartbreak as I delude myself into thinking he is alive, just for him to be yanked away from me again.

As the panic inside me increases, I know I just need to get it over with because the longer I prolong it the worse it is going to be. With this thought in mind, I finally push away. The instant I no longer feel his touch I feel that hole that has been there for the last year return.

I wrap my arms around my waist, holding myself and look up fully expecting him to be gone, but he is still there. I see the look of hurt in his eyes as he doesn't understand why I suddenly shoved myself away from him. We continue to stand there and stare at each other, neither of us knowing what to do now.

I have convinced myself that this isn't real, so as he lifts his hand to touch me again, I move away. It is during this time that we hear someone placing their key in the door.

Neither of us move, eyes still locked on each other. I hear my dad start to speak before I see him. When I finally look at him, he is looking down and focused on the papers he has in his hand that he obviously brought to discuss with me.

It isn't until he doesn't get a response from me that he finally looks up. When his eyes see me for the first time, he knows that something isn't right. He starts to ask me what is wrong when his attention is caught by something else in the room. He swings his eyes around and focuses on the other occupant of the room. I know the second that he realizes who it is because everything that he is holding in his hands falls to the floor. His mouth hangs open and the only word that is uttered is "Logan?" And you can hear the utter disbelief in his voice.

Before Logan can respond I say, "You can see him too?" and my father looks at me like I have just spoken a foreign language. He continues to look back and forth between the two of us when he says "Of course I can see him too! He's standing right there! Someone needs to explain what is going on!"

I look at my father with fresh tears welling in my eyes and say, "Daddy please tell me that this is real and I'm not dreaming!" With the love and compassion in my father's eyes that I am so used to seeing he says, "If you are then I am too, and we are both crazy!" 


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Four

I don't know if it is the words that my father says or the fact that I would rather live in the delusion while it lasts then to be standing there and not touching him, but something inside me clicks and I move again.

Not caring that my dad is there or that I am a tear stained mess, I launch myself at Logan. The instant that our lips meet the tears start to fall from my eyes and I know that he is crying too. For a second the only contact that we have is our lips. It has been so long, and my body is almost in shock from that first contact. It isn't long though when I feel his arms wrap around my waist, his fingers wrapped around one of my hips while his other arm pulls me closer. My arms respond to his touch and gently wrap themselves around his neck. My fingers lightly stroking the short hair at the base of his neck. He deepens the kiss, no longer making it the innocent first contact of our lips and I melt.

We continue this way for who knows how long, not even caring enough to stop when oxygen becomes a necessity. It isn't until my dad clears his throat, not once, but twice that we finally pull apart. As we stand there breathless, looking into each other's eyes, he leans forward and rests his forehead on mine. He takes his hand and brings it up to my face and gently strokes his thumb across my cheek to wipe away my tears, which just makes them fall even harder.

I'm so overwhelmed with emotion that I am sobbing once again. I vaguely hear my dad saying that he is going to give us some time and feeling Logan nod his head in response. I hear the front door close and then Logan places his arm under both of my legs and bridal style carries me to the couch where he places me on his lap.

I sob into his chest and can feel the tears falling from his eyes hitting me on the top of my head. My sobbing eventually takes a toll on me and I find myself falling asleep. I try to fight it, but the heavy emotions that have outlined this day combined with all of my sobs win out and I can't keep my eyes open anymore.

When I wake, I realize that I am no longer in the living room encased in Logan's arms and I panic. I instantly start to tear up and cuddle into a ball on the bed.

However, as I start to move, I realize that I am not alone in bed after all. Logan is cuddled behind me spooning my back while his arm is lovingly draped across my hip. I relax and roll over onto my other side so that I am facing him. He stays asleep as I turn in his arms and as I lay facing him I can see the toll that the last year has taken on him, even as he slumbers.

I feel like I could lay there and just stare at him forever. I never thought I would have this opportunity again and this realization causes more tears to fall.

I can't help thinking to myself that I am so over crying. I wouldn't even allow myself to break down like this when I thought that I had lost him forever. Maybe that is why I continue to cry now. It's the tears that I kept suppressed after the bomb went off, the tears that didn't fall when they lowered his empty casket into the ground, and the tears of knowing that I don't have to spend the rest of my life without him next to me.

I remember back over the past year and think about how I blamed myself for this happening. I felt that it was my cosmic karma that caused me to lose Logan. The universe's punishment for all the times that I pushed him away and broke up with him. Even my punishment for how distant I often was with him. I would think constantly about how, if I would have been better and more deserving of him, then he would still be here. Trying to push these thoughts aside and get my crying under control, I try to focus on the here and now and not the horrible year that I have just survived.

As I lay there, my hand still cupping his cheek, I suddenly can't control the hysterical giggles that overtake me. At first, I don't even know why I can't stop laughing, but the more I laugh the more the reason becomes aware. I, Veronica Mars, am being clingy. Even as I lay there, I must be touching him or him touching me. I know most people would say that given the situation it was perfectly acceptable to be clingy, but it is so out of character for me that I can't contain my laughter.

Finally, my laughter wakes him, and he starts to stir, which honestly, I don't mind because that will give me the opportunity to check him over and see what kind of damage has been done to him over our time apart. I place chaste kisses on his lips trying to coax him away from the last little bit of sleepiness. I hear him groan and he stretches and finally he opens his chocolate browns eyes. As we lock eyes, it finally dawns on me that this is real and he is here, and I can't help but smile.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Five

Logan's POV

_Earlier_ _that_ _day_.._._

As I step out of the car and walk onto the beach, I can't help but feel exhilarated. I am about to see Veronica, my wife. It has been the longest year of my life.

Normally my deployments are hard, but this was almost unbearable. Maybe it was the circumstances behind how I left, or the fact that due to the critical events that were playing out that I couldn't contact her, or maybe it was just the sheer length of time that I had been gone. Maybe it was all those combined, but whatever it is, it is making it not seem real to me.

She married me. For a long time, I didn't think that I would ever get to call her my wife and then she wanted to marry me, and I couldn't have been happier.

My feet hit the sand and I hear whining and whimpering somewhere in the distance. I look down the beach and see that the noise is coming from Pony. A huge smile crosses my lips and I'm about to call out to her when I really look at her. She is looking down not really paying attention to anything or anyone and I have never seen her look so sad. The shock of seeing her sad and broken posture keeps me quiet.

Pony soon realizes that I am there, and she can hardly contain her excitement. She starts tugging on Veronica to quicken her pace. Veronica is fighting her, but Pony is persistent, and Veronica is no match for the 70lb behemoth. She releases the leash and Pony comes bounding towards me. She hits me full force, jumping up on two legs to be closer to me. I squat down to her level and she licks my face, whining and whimpering the whole time because finally daddy is home.

Throughout all of this, Veronica has still not even acknowledged my presence. I thought that she would have been running into my arms and peppering me with kisses. I look from Pony to her and realize that she still hasn't even looked up, so I softly speak to break the silence and get her attention by simply saying her name.

She still won't look at me and I watch her face as she is clearly fighting some internal battle with herself and I can recognize the looks of anguish on her face. I try again by saying "Veronica, look at me." She still refuses to raise her eyes and my heart is breaking.

Finally Pony walks to her and gently coaxes her to move closer to me. I make one final plea for her to look at me and with a simple "Veronica, please," I see her resolve crumble and she finally looks at me.

The look of pure shock, torment, and confusion causes me to pause. This is not the welcome home I was expecting. She is looking at me and I have never seen her look so utterly broken.

I reach out and take her hand and feel that familiar zing that is coursing through my body and I try to reassure her by saying "it's real, I'm here" because I'm so confused as to why she isn't in my arms yet.

The words are barely out of my mouth and she collapses, sinking into the sand and releasing sobs that are breaking my heart. I kneel in front of her and try to pull her towards me. I desperately want to feel her in my arms and would do anything to stop her tears.

My confusion is further increased when she pushes away from me standing and yelling about how I'm not real and that I died. What does she mean that I died? They were supposed to tell her. They swore to me that she would know. I would have never made it through this entire year if I would have known how much she was suffering because she thought that she had lost me.

As the questions are tumbling out of my mouth, I reach for her and she again pulls away from my grasp. I can feel the familiar sting of tears in my eyes and as I look at her, I know that she never knew. That they never told her, and she has had to deal with not only my being gone but thinking that I would never return.

As the tears fall from my eyes, I try one more desperate plea begging her with my eyes to let me hold her. It's a simple declaration of a pet name from long ago and with the two words "Sugarpuss, please," she comes crashing into my arms.

I can't seem to get her close enough as she clings to me. For the first time in a year I feel that familiar sense of home that I only get while she is in my arms. As I stand on the beach with her in my embrace watching the setting sun, my mind starts to drift back to the course of events that led us here...


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Six

Logan's POV

_One_ _Year_ _Ago,_

As I walk towards the car to move it to avoid a ticket for being parked in the way of the street sweeper, I can't help but smile. I never thought that I could love a woman so much and I never thought that I would be lucky enough to marry her.

After everything that we have been through over the last almost twenty years, it still seems surreal to me that an hour ago she became my wife.

As I reach the car and start to climb in, she yells something out about the time in Arizona, but I'm distracted by the oncoming car that I'm sure is there to give her the ticket.

I turn and smile and start to climb in. I hear her yell "Logan?" and notice the tone of her voice sounds scared. Before I have a second to even think about why she would sound scared, I am being yanked back across the street while a bomb is going off in the car.

My Navy training kicks in as I start to try and fight off my attackers. Easier said than done when it is one against ten. Whoever they are, they came prepared. I might have been able to take on all ten of them, but before I know it, they are placing a black bag over my head and I feel a sharp pain in my arm, and I don't remember anything else.

They must have dosed me with something to make me pass out because when I wake up, I've been moved to a new location that I've never seen before.

I start looking around the room trying to find the easiest escape route. I'm surprised that I'm not tied up and left to roam around the room. I've clearly been underestimated. I don't have much time to form a plan however because the door is soon opened and in walks a man that I recognize right away.

He enters and the words "stand down soldier" are heard coming from the mouth of my commanding officer. I stand at attention, even though internally my brain is screaming at me to figure out what the hell is going on, I still can't disobey a direct order coming from my CO.

My CO orders me at ease and I instantly ask, "permission to speak freely, sir?" He grants permission and I boldly state "With all due respect sir, but could somebody please tell me what the fuck just happened?"

The adrenaline rush and the fear for my wife taking over my body and overriding my fear that I will be reprimanded for my harsh words. "I'm really trying to keep my cool, but someone needs to tell me if my wife is ok right now!" I inform them.

"Lieutenant Echolls you wife is unharmed." I'm shown a video feed from a local hospital where Veronica looks shell shocked and silent tears slowly fall down her cheeks. "If she is unharmed then why is she sitting in the hospital crying?" I ask. There's a brief pause, as if they are preparing for my reaction, when I am told that her tears are because she thinks I am dead.

I reach for my phone intending on rectifying the situation immediately by calling to inform her that I am fine, but my phone is nowhere to be found. After that everything goes by in a blur.

I'm told that it is imperative that Veronica think that I was a casualty of the explosion from the Neptune bomber. I don't take this information calmly and lash out telling them that they can't do that to her. They can't allow her to suffer and think that I am dead.

I'm told that it is crucial that the world thinks that I am dead and the best way to do that is for Veronica to not have a chance to give away the fact that I am still alive. They assure me that once the funeral is over and the press coverage has ended, they will inform her of my survival, but nothing else, as the rest of my mission is Top Secret.

I don't even want to think about what this must be doing to her right now because it would tear me apart. I am briefed on my mission and informed that due to the sensitive nature and the deep cover that I will be under, I will not be allowed to communicate with anyone in the outside world, other than the people standing in this room.

It is a matter of national security that I infiltrate my target's base and eliminate the threat no matter how long it takes. So, I will have no contact with Veronica until my mission is completed.

I spend the next two months studying everything I need to learn about my target. This mission is way out of the realm of my normal duties of a fighter pilot, but the Navy wants to take full advantage of the fact that the world all thinks that I am dead. The next four months are spent making the contact needed to infiltrate the target's base. Once inside it takes me another four months to be trusted enough to be allowed the opportunity to take out my target. After my mission is completed it takes another two months to get me safely out of the country and home.

I agonize about not being able to see or speak to Veronica. Even over my longest deployments, I have always had the comfort of knowing that at some point I would at least get to skype her to see her beautiful face and hear her voice and reassure her that I am fine. However, I don't have that luxury this time and the mission seems to never end.

If it could go wrong, it did, and I'm lucky to have escaped with my life. My only comfort is the promise that Veronica was informed that I was ok and while I know that she is worrying like she always does, at least she no longer thinks that I am dead.

That is however crushed the second that I see her and realize that she was never informed. I don't know what happened or how she wasn't told, but none of that matters as much as comforting her right now.

So here I sit with her cuddled in my lap while she sobs. Eventually I hear her breathing even out and the tight grip that she has around my neck loosens and I realize she is sleeping. Once I am sure that she is completely asleep, I lift her and carry her into our bedroom. I lay her down and climb in behind her, pulling her close, while I drape my arm across her hips.

As I lay there snuggled up against her, the enormity of the last year finally hits me and I break down. Everything that I saw and did in order to complete my mission weighs heavy on my heart and mind, but what breaks my heart the most is the knowledge that the woman that lies cuddled up against me has suffered over the last year thinking that I was gone. I pull her closer, and as I am staring at her tear stained face, I run my fingers through her hair and cry myself to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Seven

Veronica's POV

I'm not sure how long we lay there, but eventually I can't take the silence anymore. I speak the only thing that I can think of right now, which is, "How?" His response is a confused, "How what my love?" The term of endearment would normally be something that I would scoff at, however with the year of silence and separation caused by me thinking he was dead, leaves me thinking any words I hear from him are glorious. A small smile creeps across my face as I lay there and just soak in all the wonder that is Logan.

He looks at me curiously, not knowing what has caused my tiny smile, but I simply nod to encourage him to tell me his story of the last year of his life that I have been missing from. While I lay there and listen to his story, I can't help the growing anger I feel building inside of me. I can't comprehend how something as important as informing me that my husband was not blown into a million tiny pieces outside of our home, could be forgotten.

I try to calm myself down because I don't want the first real conversation we have had since our wedding day to be laced with anger; however, I feel that I am fighting a losing battle. He finishes his story and without saying a word I slowly stand up, grab his hand, to pull him from the bed, and start heading towards the shower. I continue to pull him along behind me and remove my clothes as we go. I know he is confused by my lack of response, but I'm choosing to avoid the situation instead of fighting about it.

After all, I have been jaded by life and this last year has only made it worse, so in spite of that fact that I swore I would change if I ever got him back, I decide to again run from a tense situation and the easiest way for me to do that is with a distraction. Glancing back at Logan I smile because he is the best distraction there is, especially when it involves him in the shower.

I start the water and as I am allowing it to warm up, I turn around and start to remove his clothing. He looks and me quizzically and asks, "Veronica what are you doing?" I pause for a second before I respond with "Logan I'm angry at everything that the Navy put us through, I haven't seen you in a year, and I don't want to fight with you about it. So, I am going to need you to cuss the anger right out of me." I hear a small gasp before that classic Logan smirk appears on his face and he says, "Yes ma'am," and I can't help but think, Oh how I have missed that mouth of his.

I step into the shower and grab his hand to pull him with me. The warm water hits me first, but I wrap my hands around his biceps and spin us so that he is in the water. I reach up on my tip toes to run my fingers through his hair, while the water cascades down his chiseled body. I grab his shampoo that I still have in the shower because I couldn't handle throwing it away and start to lather his hair. I think back on all the times over the past year that I would stand in the shower until the water ran cold, just smelling the familiar scent that was him. Nothing compares though to the smell of that shampoo on him. It's a perfect mix and everything that is Logan and I can't help but be in awe of the fact that he is here.

I rinse his hair and grab his body wash to wash the rest of him. As I am washing him, I slowly take my hand across each part of his skin looking for any new scars or marks that weren't there a year ago. There's a small one on his left shoulder that is only about an inch long, a round one on his right peck, and a long one that runs along his right bicep.

The whole time that I am making new memories of my husband's body, he is watching me, so when the first silent tears start to fall, he notices and puts his fingers under my chin to slowly lift my head up to kiss me. The kisses start off as small lingering pecks, but quickly develop into something more when he slides his tongue along my bottom lip, seeking entrance into my mouth. I happily oblige and a small moan accompanies the urgent kisses.

He pulls me close and I wrap my legs around his body as he turns and presses me against the tiled wall. It isn't long before we are lost in each other's embrace, trying to eliminate all the hurt that radiates out of us from the last year. As the tension builds, I softly plea for release, that he is more than willing to provide. We find bliss in each other and we are left breathless and sated after our intimate time together in the shower.

I quickly start to wash, but Logan takes over for me and washes me the same way that I washed him. The water is beyond cold by the time Logan decides that I am clean enough, but neither one of us cares. Even with everything that has happened, and everything that we still need to discuss, we can't stop the smiles that spread across our faces due to the simple fact that no matter what it is we have still to come, at least we get to do it together. I make a silent vow to never take that for granted because I am getting a second chance at life with Logan and it is just too short to waste it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Eight

Veronica's POV

Emerging from the shower with ridiculous grins plastered across our faces, I can't help but be amazed at what a difference not even twelve hours can make. Less than twelve hours ago I was standing on the beach feeling broken beyond repair and now I am standing hand in hand with Logan and I can't help but feel blissfully happy.

We climb back into bed and lay on our sides, facing each other, fingers intertwined between us on the mattress. For a while we are content just to lay there and bask in the marvelous feeling that we are once again back together.

However, the desire for answers to the questions about the past year soon win out and I know that I can no longer keep quiet. From years of having to deal with the secrets that the Navy forces him to keep, I know that I probably won't get as many of the answers that I want, if I even get any at all. I know that he is as lost in the dark as I am as to why they never informed me about his survival, so I don't even bother to bring that up. That can wait until after Logan has a, what I am sure to be, very heated discussion with his CO about the incompetence that lead to me believing that he perished in the bombing.

The one question that I fear the answer to keeps running through my mind. After several failed attempts to ask what I am thinking, I finally am able to find my voice and ask him, "How long are you home for?" I know that he can be called back at any time that the Navy feels necessary, even if he just got back, but I am hoping that the circumstances of the last year will at least allow us to have a certain amount of set time together.

He sighs and brings his hand up to run it through his hair saying, "I can't do it anymore. I want out. My reenlistment came due while I was under deep cover, so it was never discussed, but I just can't do it anymore. I'm going to ask for my honorable discharge." I start to comment, but before I can he continues. "There were so many times over the last year when I thought that I wasn't going to make it. I would find myself in a situation where I would think, this is it, this is the end of Logan Echolls. And while there was always the fear of dying, my biggest fear and regret was always that I would never be able to hold you in my arms and tell you how much I love you and that the last words that you would have heard me say to you were a mumbled statement that I was going to move the car. And now with imagining what the last year has done to you because of my Navy career, it just isn't worth it anymore. Protecting you is my only priority from here on out and I will do anything in my power to never hurt you again. I'm so sorry Veronica."

I lay there stunned, processing everything that he has just told me. I never thought that he would say that he was done with the Navy. I know how much it means to him and how it helped to shape him into the kind of man that he really wanted to be. Secretly, ok maybe not so secretly, I had always hoped that his Navy career would end sooner rather than later, but I always figured that it would be the source of many fights before he came to that decision, many years down the road. Now he is telling me that this is what he wants, without any yelling and saying things that we can't take back and I am not sure how I feel about it.

The silence apparently becomes too much when he asks me, "What are you thinking?" I look down at our fingers that are laced together and sigh, "I can't believe that I am even going to say this, but I can't let you do that. I can't ask you to give up your dreams. You love what you do. It gives you a sense of purpose that you sought after for so many years. It would be like you asking me to stop being a PI, which you know I wouldn't do because it is a huge part of me just like your Navy career is a huge part of you. Asking you to give up that part of yourself is how the old selfish Veronica used to be, and I can't be that person anymore. Look at what it almost cost me. It almost cost me you. If I wouldn't have been so insistent on taking the Neptune bomber case, then that bomb would have never been in our car and I would not have spent the last year thinking that I was a widow."

I look up from my long-winded rant and see the smirk that is on his face. He starts to chuckle as he asks me," Are you done?" I give a soft gasp and furrow my eyebrows as I playfully shove him with my hand in the shoulder. He grabs my hand as I pull it away and pulls me close for a gentle kiss, laughing at himself the whole time. "I love you" he says, "but I am doing this." I start to protest but he silently raises his hand as an indication for me to stop as he continues, "You aren't asking me to do anything. I am telling you that this is what I want. I want to be able to come home to you every night. I want to not dread every time the phone rings, that it is the call that is going to send me back out on deployment and away from you again. We have wasted so much time over the last almost twenty years being apart, whether it be from the Navy or the nine years that we didn't even speak, and I just can't do it anymore. I don't need the Navy Veronica, I need you!"

Still laying on my side, I prop myself up on one arm, so that I can really look down at him and see his whole face as I contemplate everything that he has just said. I start to argue because that is what I do best, but I stop myself when I realize that this is one argument that I don't want to win. I want the same things that he does. I don't ever want to see him walk out of the door and wonder if it is the last time that I will see him. I don't want to wait days or weeks at a time between skype phone calls, and I don't want to hold anything back because I fear that if I love him too much and let him too close it will all be taken away from me. I softly run my fingers down his cheek, stroking the side of his face with a feather soft touch. He closes his eyes and leans his head into my hand's embrace and the only thing that I can say is, "I love you too."

He smiles the first smile that truly lights up his entire face. The last time that I saw that smile was when he was saying, "I do." I'm not sure if he understands that my declaration is me agreeing to the end of his Navy career or if he just thinks that the argument can wait for later, but he continues to smile as he takes my hand that is still stroking his cheek and brings my fingers to his lips and places soft kisses across my knuckles. With the kiss to my last knuckle he breathes in a deep yawn. It is at that moment that I start to feel just how exhausted I am too. He leans forward and sweetly kisses my nose, my cheeks, and finally places a lingering kiss on my lips. I smile at him, but I am unable to contain my own yawns now, so with one final kiss, I roll over, so my back is pressed up against his chest and pull his arm around me, lacing our fingers together in front of me. I lay there loving the feeling of his heart beating from his chest against my back. I am lulled to sleep by his steady breathing and the rhythm of his heart.

In the early hours of the morning as the sun is just beginning to crest over the horizon, and while Pony snores contentedly on the floor, we sleep entangled in each other's arms, not sure where one of us ends and the other begins. It is the most peaceful night of sleep that I have had since the night before our wedding because I am finally back where I belong and no longer need remind myself how to breathe.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Nine

Veronica's POV

When I woke later, I look at the clock and notice that it is already the afternoon. Sleep was obviously something that we both desperately needed. I gaze at Logan and my thoughts start to wonder about what kind of horrors he had to endure over the last year. I know that he was intentionally vague when he explained the details of his mission.

I watched as he told me the story and could tell when he was leaving things out and the hurt that was clouded in his eyes by whatever he was remembering. Part of the lack of details was simply because he was not allowed to tell me due to his oath to the Navy, but more than that I could tell, even if he could tell me, he wouldn't.

If I know anything in this world, I know how to read Logan's face and I could tell the exact moment when the memories were making him think that what he had done would disappoint me. I wish that I had told him that no matter what he had done it didn't matter because he made it back to me, but communication is still not something that I am very good at, especially since I was so angry while he explained it all to me. The last year has only made me more closed off from the world and my feelings.

A part of me went completely numb the second that my brain comprehended that he was a casualty of the car bomb that was meant for me. It was the only way for me to be able to survive. I had to shut part of myself down, otherwise I would have never made it through one second, let alone a whole year.

Last night was a rare moment brought on by the magnitude of his homecoming. A homecoming that I had dreamed of for a year, but never imagined would actually happen. That is what had allowed me to open up and actually have a heartfelt discussion about his not re-enlisting, but there were so many things that I left unspoken.

I should have been more of a comfort to him when I saw the look of fear in his eyes. The fear that the unspoken things would cause me to leave him. I know that this will always be a fear that is in the back of his mind brought on by all the times that when things got too hard, I did run. I'm sure that our time apart has only amplified those fears, which I have to assume were only made worse when he learned that I was never told of his actual fate.

I'm lost in thought, contemplating all of the things that still need said and how I'm sure we have many long, much needed, conversations ahead of us, when I feel Pony start to lick my hand. I feel bad for the poor girl. It has been awhile since she has been out, and she has been such a good girl. She must have sensed how much daddy and I needed our time together last night and never even let out one whine.

I gently try to extract myself from his embrace so I can take poor Pony down to the beach. I somehow am able to get up from the bed without waking him. I quietly throw on some clothes and make my way from the bedroom. Pony follows behind me and I grab her leash and we head for the beach.

I'm standing in the sand, watching while Pony plays in the surf, when I feel his strong arms wrap around my waist. I let out a contented sigh and lean back into his embrace, resting my back against his chiseled front. He lowers his head to gently nuzzle on my neck, planting a few kisses right below my ear. I can feel the smile on his lips as he tells me, "Good morning beautiful."

I place my arms over the top of his that are still wrapped around my waist and lace my fingers with his as he rests them on my flat stomach. "Mmmm, Good morning," I moan. It crosses my mind that maybe I should bring up all of the things that I was thinking about as I watched him sleep earlier, but I just don't want to ruin the moment, so I decide that it can wait until later.

"How long have you been out here? I woke up and you and Pony were both gone. I couldn't find you at first and I got a little worried."

"We haven't been out here long. Pony needed to go out and I didn't want to wake you, so we just slipped out here for her to run off some energy," I explain. "We were just about to come back up to the house and see if you were awake."

As I am speaking, my stomach starts to grumble, making noisy protests because it is clearly hungry. Logan starts to chuckle as he must have heard it too. "Come on, let's go upstairs and I will make you something to eat," he states between chuckles. We start to head back to the apartment, and he turns around and calls out, "Pony, come on girl, let's go inside." Pony happily obliges and comes bounding up towards us.

We walk hand in hand up the stairs and into our tiny apartment. While I try and dry off the now soaked dog from her time playing in the surf, Logan makes his way into the kitchen to start something for us to eat.

He is opening the cabinets and the fridge looking for anything he can find when he calls out to me, "Umm Veronica? You have absolutely nothing here to eat."

I sheepishly look away, trying to avoid looking at him. "Yeah, grocery shopping is not something I did a whole lot of while you were gone. I didn't feel the need. When I was here alone, I never wanted to eat anything, so having food here just seemed like a waste."

"So, if you weren't eating here, then when were you eating?" he asks, the look of concern is clear on his face.

"When I was with my dad, or Wallace, even Dick came by and would take me to eat every now and then. They must have had some sort of, make sure that Veronica eats schedule, where they took turns on whose responsibility I was. They never said it, but I think they tried to make sure that I was alone as little as possible." I can see the look of hurt in his eyes, so I move towards him and place my hand on his arm.

He starts to speak, "Veronica, I am," but I cut him off and say, "Hey, it wasn't your fault. Please don't blame yourself for this. It wasn't easy, but we all made it through, and you are here now."

He is not making eye contact with me as I stand there with my hand on his arm, so I move around so I am standing directly in front of him and wrap my arms around his waist. I lay my head on his chest and his arms encircle around me. I lift my head and stand on my tip toes, kissing him and trying to relay with my kisses how much I don't blame him for this. The kiss ends and I feel him sigh and a small sad smile crosses his face.

Talking about my dad, Wallace, and Dick makes me realize that none of them know what is going on. My dad at least knows that Logan is alive, but he didn't stick around for an explanation to give Logan and I time together. Wallace and Dick don't even know that he is alive. With that thought in mind, I reluctantly separate myself from his embrace and I start to search for my phone having no idea where it has gone to. It was the least of my concerns when we came back from the beach yesterday after our very emotional reunion. I find it on the couch under my discarded jacket and sure enough, there are several messages from this morning asking me to call him and explain what has happened.

Logan has left the kitchen and is now standing next to me, wondering what I am doing. "My dad," I explain. "How about we go and grab something to eat and take it to my dad's because I know he has a lot of questions and at some point, we need to tell Wallace, Shae, and Dick too."

He sighs and brings his hand up to run it through his short hair and rub the back of his neck, "Ok let's do this then." I can tell that he is not looking forward to having more emotional conversations with our friends and family that have thought that he was gone, but he grabs his jacket as I am putting on mine and we make our way towards the door.

We are almost out the door when Pony tries to push her way out with us, whining as she clearly does not want us to leave her alone. I look at Logan and say, "I don't think she wants you to go."

He kneels in front of her petting her and rubbing behind her ears. "Hey Pony, daddy will be back. I promise. Now go and lay down and be a good girl." She reluctantly moves away and lays down and we are able to make it out the door.

We walk towards the car, he comes around the passenger side to open the door for me and I climb in. He walks back around to the other side and pauses outside of the driver's side door. After a brief moment he climbs in leans towards me, gives me a sweet kiss, and takes my hand.

We drive away, off towards what I am sure is to be another emotional conversation. I look at Logan across the console and say, "After this is all said and done, I am going to need to sleep for at least a week."

He laughs while shaking his head and agrees, "So am I."


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Ten

Logan's POV

As we are pulling away from our home, I am overcome with many plaguing thoughts. I reach across the console and lace my fingers with hers, gently rubbing my thumb across her knuckles. I'm not sure if I am trying to comfort her or myself, but either way the motion and the simple act of touching her calms me.

Earlier when I told Veronica that I got a little worried when I woke and her and Pony were gone, I wasn't exactly telling the truth. The truth was that when I woke up and couldn't find them, I panicked. I instantly started thinking that after I had fallen asleep, she had time to think about everything and she decided to leave me. That she thought to herself that she just couldn't do this and that she blamed me for everything that had happened. Her decision to marry me didn't come easy and we had no time to adjust to being married before I was ripped away from her. I had no time to get comfortable with the idea that this is what she wanted. What if while I was away, she decided that marriage to me wasn't something that she wanted? What if she changed her mind?

The anger that I have about the whole situation comes back to the surface again for the thousandth time since I was yanked away from her only an hour after our wedding. The honeymoon phase of our marriage was stolen away from us and I worry that we will never actually get to experience that. As if our lives had not dealt us enough already, this just adds one more thing to the already complicated past that Veronica and I had.

During our very brief wedding, I had finally felt like maybe my life would finally be "normal" and have happiness that I never thought that I deserved. I had meant what I said when I told her that if I wasn't what she wanted that I would leave before we were married, but the idea of not being with her now, feels like it would kill me. Walking away now would be the hardest thing I would ever have to do, and I'm not sure if I would actually be able to do it.

I can't even describe the relief that I felt when I walked down to the beach and saw her standing there watching Pony play. I could tell that she had been deep in thought, but I was honestly glad that her stomach had created a distraction from whatever had her so quiet.

I pull my eyes away from the road to sneak a quick glance at her. 'God, she is so beautiful,' I think to myself, but I can't help but think again for the second time today how thin she looks. She has always been a tiny little thing, but when I was searching for food earlier and she had none, I realized how thin she looked now. Her quiet admission that she didn't feel like eating when she was home alone and that our friends and family had been what had ensured that she ate, breaks my heart.

Veronica always had a very healthy appetite, so the fact that she didn't want to eat just shows the extent of her heartbreak. I know that she tried to comfort me and tell me that this wasn't my fault, but I don't know how she sees it that way.

My guilt was further amplified when she brought up telling our friends. As soon as Veronica had said Wallace and Dick, my heart sank. While our circle of friends is very limited, we did have a few that had become my family and I never thought about how this had affected them. I was so focused on Veronica and how she was handling this while I was gone and on just surviving that I selfishly never let it occur to me that other people might be suffering because of this too.

I think about Dick and how he always tries to be the life of the party, but his life has not been easy. He has suffered many tragedies and this would have just been one more to add to his life. Over the last two decades that Dick and I were friends, he had become a brother to me. He was there for me during many of the worst times of my life, and I had not been there for him during this, in fact, I had caused this pain. Veronica shifts next to me and I am pulled from my deep thoughts and I wonder how long we have been driving for. I look over at her and she too must be lost in thought because she doesn't seem to notice that we are just driving around aimlessly.

"What should we get to eat?" I ask, trying to pull us both out of our melancholy thoughts.

"I don't care, whatever you want," she answers.

"You have to eat," I sigh at her, getting more than just a little annoyed with what I think is still her reluctance to eat anything.

"I will, I just don't feel up to making any decisions right now. I will be content to eat whatever we grab."

I sigh and make a decision to run by a local spot that I know has pancakes that she loves. I hope that getting that will ensure that she eats more than what she clearly has been.

We make quick work of getting our food. I'm glad that they serve pancakes all day, since this is technically our "breakfast." I make sure to order more pancakes, sausage, and bacon than I think we will need and we take our order and head towards Keith's.

When we get to Keith's, I grab our food and walk around to Veronica's side of the car and open her door, extending my hand so I can grab hers and help her out of the car.

She takes my hand, but before we start to walk inside, I pull her back to me and press her up against the car. She is looking down and not meeting my eyes, so I put the food on the hood of the car and place her face between both of my hands, forcing her to look at me.

She looks up at me and I kiss her, putting more passion into the kiss than I intended. I just couldn't help myself once our lips touched. I had a lot of missed time to make up for and I was going to take advantage of the fact that she was in front of me where I could kiss her.

"Are you okay?" I ask once I end the kiss, only pulling back enough to lean my forehead against hers.

She brings her hands up to wrap around my wrists, as my hands are still cradling her face and places one more soft kiss on my lips before answering with a simple "Yes."

I quirk an eyebrow at her, but she just pushes off of the car, takes my hand and walks us towards the house. I grab the bag of food and we walk up the steps, her in the lead, with me following only a few steps behind.

When we get to the front door, she must sense my hesitation, because she turns to me and asks, "Are you ready?"

I take a deep breath and I nod my head. She gently squeezes my hand that she is holding and knocks on the door.

We don't have to wait long for Keith to come and open the door. When he opens the door, he has that same shocked look on his face that he did when he saw me in our apartment yesterday.

"I feel like I'm looking at a ghost he says."

I chuckle but don't have time to say anything before Veronica says "Ghost, hallucination, Naval Intelligence Officer who has been on a top secret mission instead of dead like we all actually thought," she shrugs her shoulders and gives him a weak smile.

I know that she is trying to make light of the situation, trying to hide how much the last 24 hours have been emotionally gut wrenching.

Keith softly smiles and steps out of the way so that we can enter the house.

I hold up the bag I'm carrying and tell him, "We brought food." I notice that he no longer walks with his cane and wonder if he finally got the hip replacement that he had been waiting on. I hope so because that would mean that some good things happened while I was gone.

We make our way into the house and quickly get ourselves settled with our meal. Once we are seated Keith says, "Okay, explain."

I look over at Veronica and notice that she is just pushing her food around her plate, not really eating much of it at all. Keith notices too and gives me a look that clearly says that it is my turn to deal with this. I know that he must be thinking that he has dealt with this for a year now and probably grateful that he doesn't have to be the one to have this argument again.

"Keith, didn't you teach Veronica not to play with her food." I snatch her fork and grab a few pieces of pancake and put it to her lips. "This is what this is used for. It's called eating," I remark, the sass clearly evident in my statement.

I make an exaggerated airplane movement with the fork and she finally opens her mouth and eats the bite, but not without an eye roll that would put the biggest drama queens to shame.

I try to hide my laughter, but it comes out in a snort and when I look over at Keith, he is having a hard time containing his own laughter too.

I go to grab another forkful of pancake to feed her, but she snatches it out of my hands and glares at me. "I can feed myself, thank you very much."

After she eats a couple more bites of pancakes and several strips of bacon I feel satisfied that my plan has worked and she is eating and so I am comfortable telling Keith my story of the last year.

He listens intently, only stopping me to ask a few questions here and there. Nothing that is really all that important in the grand scheme of things. I answer whatever questions I can, the whole time fearing that the last year is going to destroy the bond that Keith and I had finally formed over the last several years. How could he not hate me for what I put her through.

I look over at Keith, trying to gauge how he feels about the whole situation, but he is looking at Veronica, an anxious look on his face, clearly trying to decide what to say. "Sweetie, are you ok?"

She's not making eye contact with either of us, but she simply shrugs her shoulders, "Yeah dad, I'm fine."

She is pulling away, trying to hide her feelings and keep it all locked up inside, where she thinks that she can't be hurt. She has done it to me so many times and I can't let her do it again. We have to grow and part of that growth has to include facing things head on, even when they feel impossible to handle.

Keith looks back and forth between the two of us finally resting his gaze on her. "It's ok not to be," he says on a sigh.

She is still not looking at either of us, instead she is choosing to look at her hands as she plays with her fingers.

Determined to not let her pull away, I slide her onto my lap. She doesn't fight it, instead she cuddles close and finds the spot between my arms that I swear was made just for her. She takes a deep breath and sighs as she clasps the front of my shirt in her hands.

She still hasn't responded to what Keith says, but he continues, "It's ok to need time to process and it's ok to be overwhelmed, and it's ok to be angry, sad, happy, or any combination of those. It's going to take time for life to feel normal again and that is ok too, but what is not ok is pushing away the people who are here to support you. Logan and I are here and we both love you, you just need to tell us what you need."

After what feels like an eternity, but in reality is probably only a few seconds, I feel her muscles that had been so tense start to relax.

"Remember last year when you asked me what I would do without you and I told you that I would be sticking my head in the oven because the two most important people in my life would be gone?"

I nod, but don't say anything, instead I place my fingers under her chin and lift her head, forcing her to look in my eyes and silently pleading for her to continue.

"This is the first time in so long that I don't feel like doing that, and I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. The other shoe always drops. I get to spend an hour feeling blissfully happy, only for it to be ripped away from me again. Don't I deserve to be happy?" she lets out on a sob.

"Of course you deserve to be happy. You are my beautiful, intelligent, sometimes pain in the ass daughter, who is always looking out for everyone. I know that life has often times dealt you a rough hand, but I refuse to believe that you won't have good things in your life that are permanent. I refuse to believe that after everything the two of you have been through to be together, that the universe would take him away from you again. Even with my own jaded experiences, I believe that bad things do come to an end and good, no great things are in yours and Logan's futures together."

He lets that sink in before he continues, "But you have to talk to us Veronica. You can't shut us out and tell us that you are ok, when you aren't. Hell I'm not sure that I am ok and I only tolerate the boy. Well ok, I might like him, a little bit." He holds up his thumb and finger, indicating a small space between the two. I can tell by the grin on his face that he is messing with me so I smile and give him a small nod.

I am holding her close, gently rubbing my hands up and down her back trying to convey how much everything that he just said is true.

She looks up and places tender kisses along my jawline. "Right now I'm exhausted, emotionally drained, and my eyes feel like sandpaper from all of the tears that I have cried, so I guess I'm not ok, but I want to be. I want to be better and I want to not fear happiness like I always have in the past, and for the first time, I am willing to admit that I will probably need some help doing that."

"Keith, you didn't happen to be recording that, did you? I know you have to have a recording device hidden in here somewhere. Did the great Veronica Mars just admit that she can't do something on her own?" I joke, trying to lighten the mood.

She swats my shoulder and I pull her closer, placing a kiss on her forehead. I linger for a minute, breathing her in.

"We both need to learn to trust that we can be happy, that we deserve to be happy. I know that I need you by my side in order for that to happen. So as cliché as it sounds, how about we take it one day at a time? What do you say, are you still in this with me Mars, for the long haul?"

"I'm with you under one condition," she says, and I know that she is up to something because she has a devilish smirk on her face.

"What's that?"

"You have to figure out how we are going to tell Dick. I've dealt with him for the last year and am so glad that he can be your problem again. He is exhausting."

I don't even try to contain my laughter when I respond with, "You've got a deal."


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Veronica's POV

Chapter Eleven

Figuring out how to break the news to our friends was going to be interesting. How do you tell your husband's best friend that he isn't dead? I'm not going lie, Dick tends to absolutely annoy the shit out of me, but he Logan's best friend and has been a part of our lives for what almost seems like forever. And while we are being honest, I have to admit that he was a key part in helping me grieve.

He wasn't around as much as my dad and Wallace, but he still managed to show up and make sure that I was not just lying in my bed and refusing to face the world. In true Dick fashion, he was usually a giant pain in the ass, constantly making comments that were laced with sexual innuendos and just generally not appearing to take anything serious.

However, I will never forget the silent support that he gave me when we were faced with the difficult task of "burying" Logan. I remember standing there next to the empty casket as it was being lowered into the ground, clinging to the flag in my arms.

My dad stood on one side holding my hand and Wallace on the other, my arm that is holding the flag looped through his, each trying to offer me support as I attempted to not have a full-blown breakdown graveside. However, the most surprising source of comfort was the strong hand the was placed on my shoulder. Dick stood behind me, his hand gently squeezing my shoulder, trying to be reassuring with his touches and convey that we would be ok.

When he first placed his hand there, I jumped at the contact, but I turned my head to the side and looked up at his face and saw the silent tears that were running down his cheeks and in that moment I saw the heartbreak that he very rarely let anyone see. I am pretty sure that other than Logan, no one has seen Dick that emotionally exposed and I found myself surprisingly grateful for his presence.

The four of us stood there long after the casket was lowered into the ground and everyone else had left, no one wanting to be the first to walk away. It was Dick who finally started guiding us towards the limo that was waiting to take us home. That was the only time that he allowed any of us to see how much the loss of Logan was affecting him.

After that he would always attempt to be his typical Dick self, but every once in a while, when he thought that I wasn't watching, he would stand looking at the pictures that I still had displayed in the apartment and for a second the sadness would be evident in his eyes, but just as quickly, he would visibly shake his head, as if he was trying to clear his thoughts, and the sadness would be gone.

I know that his brave face was for my benefit, but I often wondered how he was really coping with Logan's death behind closed doors. I'm distracted by all these thoughts and memories as we drive over to Dick's. I look over at the apprehension that is displayed on Logan's face and wonder if just showing up is the best idea.

"Are you sure that the 'rip the band aid off' approach is the best idea?" I ask nervously.

"No, I don't know if it is the best way to tell him or not, but it's the best idea that I have right now. I never considered the logistics of what my return would be. I just wanted to get home. I never considered how difficult it might be to become a part of everyone's lives again."

He is clearly upset by his declaration and I don't want him to think that any of us would ever not want him to be here with us. "Logan, you know how happy I am that you are home right? Please don't think that our conversation at my dad's in any way meant that you being here hasn't given me my life back and our friends are going to be just as happy. Well hopefully not quite as happy, unless there was something that I didn't know about going on between you and Dick," I snicker.

"You think that you are so cute."

"I know I'm cute."

"Yes, you are," he says bringing my hand to his lips and kissing it. "What if he is mad? What if we can't get back to the friendship that we had before?"

"I don't think that you need to worry about that. Dick hasn't been the same since we thought you were gone. He tries to act the same, tell his same dirty jokes, even tries to agitate and provoke me into telling him how much of an idiot I think he is, but I can tell that his heart isn't in it. It's all an act, a front that he puts up, thinking that it helped me to not be so sad. His eyes don't light up with the same mischievous mirth that I was always accustomed too. When he thought he lost you, he thought he lost another brother and I was too focused on my own grief to comfort him."

The look of guilt that I am becoming very familiar with lately, crosses his face and I can sense the internal battle that is waging in his head.

"Logan, we all missed you so much. After you were gone, whenever we would all get together, or even if it was just a couple of us, it just didn't feel right. Something was always missing and that missing piece was always you. Having you back makes us all whole again and I know that everyone, including Dick will feel the same way and no one will blame you for what happened."

"That doesn't mean that he won't still slug me for letting you all think that I was dead."

"Well Dick will be Dick."

When we arrive at Dick's, it is my turn to be the first to exit the car. Logan quickly follows, falling into step beside me. I think about knocking, but I decide not to. I don't think that standing outside is the best place for Dick to find out, so I don't want him to come and answer the door. I'm really not sure how he is going to react.

We walk into the house and find Dick clicking through the channels, not really paying attention to what is on the screen, but also not bothering to pull his eyes away from the tv and look at us. He somehow still knows it's me without me saying a word.

"Ronnie, you can't just walk in here whenever you want to. What if I had been entertaining a lovely lady?" he starts in already.

"By entertaining, do you mean babysitting, because the last few girls that I recall you entertaining still qualified as barely not needing a babysitter," I banter back.

"Seriously Ronnie I can't help it that all of the ladies love the Dickster. You're just jealous that the only action that you get from me is when you steal my batteries to use in your vibrator."

Logan hasn't said anything since we walked in, he just stood and listened to us bickering back and forth, so I'm a little surprised that when I am about to snark back that I think that he is the jealous of my vibrator because it gets more action than he does, he stops me by placing his hand on my arm.

"I somehow don't think that her vibrator is going to get much use anymore," Logan finally decides that he has a voice.

Of course, it just figures that the first words that he would speak to his best friend in a year would be about my vibrator. Only with these two.

Dick still has his back to us, but the second that Logan speaks, all evidence of joking leaves his posture. He instantly straightens up; back stiffening and I notice a slight tremble in his hand as he drops the remote that had been idly flipping through the channels.

"Veronica, if you have somehow found some elaborate way to fuck with me, with Logan's voice, I'm not laughing. This is cruel even for you," Dick says, still not turning to look at us.

I'm taken aback by the tone of his voice and the fact that I didn't even know that Dick knew what my actual name was. He was always happy to mockingly call me Ronnie.

"She isn't fucking with you Dick."

He turns and finally looks at the two of us and I'm surprised by the angry look that appears on his face. He stands motionless for a moment before he comes around the couch to where we are standing and shoves Logan. I start to move forward trying to put myself between the two of them, but Logan puts his arm up indicating for me to stay where I am.

He shoves him again, pushing him harder while angrily proclaiming, "What the hell is this? Where the hell have you been? What kind of sick joke have you two been pulling?"

Each question is punctuated by another nudge backwards. I watch as Logan lets him continue to repeat the same questions over and over, apparently sensing that he is trying to deal with the emotions that Logan's return has brought to the surface.

I can tell that his anger is losing steam as the pushes and questions grow weaker and weaker. Logan must have sensed the same things that I was because with one final shove he grabs ahold of Dick, grabbing one of his hands and pulls him into a one-armed hug that is supposed to be masculine, the only sounds in the room now being the gentle slaps to the back that accentuate their "bro hug."

In those moments, it occurs to me just how much their friendship means to the two of them as Logan keeps repeating, "It's ok man. I'm here."

Their moment passes and Dick steps back, trying to wipe away the few tears that have fallen before he thinks that I have noticed, but it is too late because I have already seen them.

However, now is not the time for me to say anything about them and so I pretend to not have noticed and let him think he got away with showing emotions that he has tried so long to keep at bay for my sake.

I walk over to Dick and shock us both by wrapping him in a hug. For a moment, he stands there, arms frozen at his side, not returning my embrace, but then he gives me a tentative hug and asks, "What was that for?"

"For everything that you did for me while Logan was away."

"Just admit it, you know you want me."

I smack him upside the back of the head. "You're an idiot."

We all three can't help but laugh, grateful that the sad moment has passed.

We decide that it would be easier if we tell Wallace and Shae Logan's story at the same time as Dick instead of having to go through the whole process again once we leave here. So, while Logan orders food for us all, I call Wallace and tell him that something important has come up and ask if him and Shae could meet us at Dick's.

He reluctantly agrees, not liking the fact that I refuse to tell him anything until they are here and probably wondering why I would be willingly hanging out at Dick's.

I walk back into the room after ending my call with Wallace and see that Logan must be done ordering food as well. They sit in the living room neither one really saying anything to each other. Dick is clearly staring at Logan and it is obviously starting to make him uncomfortable.

"Seriously Dick, stop staring at me."

"I can't help it man. You can't just show up here and expect me to not stare, especially since I have no idea what the hell could have happened to allow you to be here."

Logan is saved from having to respond to that as the doorbell rings. I go to answer the door, not sure whether it is our food or Wallace and Shae. I open the door to see the questioning eyes of my best friend, clearly still trying to figure out the point of my rather impromptu need to have them at Dick's.

I open the door to allow them to come in, but as I do, Logan walks up behind me, pulling out his wallet. He must have assumed that it was our food. He attempts to hand me bills from his wallet, not really looking up.

At this point Wallace and Shae have taken notice to the person trying to hand me money. Shae gasps and her hand goes to her mouth, her eyes starting to well with unshed tears and Wallace lets out a very ineloquent "Holy Shit!"

Dick snickers in the background, finding amusement in Wallace's first reaction to seeing Logan.

I turn and glare at him, trying to convey how I don't think that he should be laughing right now, which just makes him laugh even harder.

We are all still standing there looking at each other completely dumbfounded as to what to say or do at the exact moment when the delivery guy arrives with our Chinese.

The poor guy has to clear his throat twice before Logan finally moves forward to pay the man. He places a handful of bills in the guy's hand, who starts to argue that he has given him way too much, but Logan grabs the food, tells him to keep the change, and ushers Shae and Wallace inside.

The reprieve offered by the food delivery has finally shocked Wallace out of his silent stupor and he is hurling the same questions at Logan that he has been hearing since his arrival home.

I look over at him and watch him bring his hand up to massage the back of his neck and I notice how much the strain of the day must have been taking on him. He looks tired and stressed and I wonder if it was a good idea to tell all of the important people in our lives in the same day.

I walk over to him and pull his hand down that is worriedly rubbing the back of his neck and lace my fingers with his, trying to give him silent support.

We still haven't explained anything and I can tell that Wallace is starting to get a little annoyed by everyone's silence.

I try to make light of the situation, hoping to take some of the stress off of Logan by throwing my hand that isn't holding Logan's into the air and yelling, "Surprise."

Dick snickers again and says, "Hey, this kind of reminds me about Logan's surprise party years ago. We all definitely got a surprise that night that we expecting then too."

Logan's face breaks into a smile at the mention of that very eventful night and that somehow manages to break the tension in the room.

The food momentarily forgotten, we all head into the living room and take a seat. I take pity on Logan, not wanting him to have to go through the whole story again, for the third time in 24 hours, and begin the process of explaining to our friends everything that I know about the circumstances that brought us all back together after the last year.

While relaying the story, I mostly keep my eyes locked on Logan. However, I do glance at our friends periodically, trying to gauge their reactions to everything that I am saying. Dick looks utterly confused, maybe trying to figure out just like I did, how exactly this happened. Shae looks on the verge of tears the entire story. I notice that she keeps reaching out and gently placing her hand on my arm, giving it reassuring squeezes when my voice gets choked up as I briefly explain our reunion.

The look on Wallace's face causes me to be concerned. I can tell that he is angry and the more I continue, the angrier he gets. I've made it most of the way through, at the point where I am explaining the visit with my dad this morning when Wallace clearly can't contain his anger anymore.

He glares at Logan, "How could you let them do this to her? Didn't you fucking care about what this was doing to her? What she went through. What we all went through trying to put her back together again. Do you know how hard it was to look at her and wonder if I would ever see the sparkle back in her eyes that has been gone since that day? Or how much it killed me to look at the broken shell of a person that used to be my best friend?

I stare at Wallace shocked, my mouth hanging open, my mind reeling from everything that he has just said. I knew that this was hard on everyone, but I never imagined what a huge impact my sadness had been on him.

Dick jumps in quickly to defend Logan, my mind still clearly not caught up enough to make any sort of intelligent statement. "Dude, didn't you hear the part where Ronnie said that he didn't know. He thought she knew and even if he didn't, what was he supposed to do? I've been sampling my special brownies today and still heard all of that. What is your excuse?"

I look over at Logan and see the absolutely heartbroken expression on his face and that finally prompts my brain to start working again and I look at Wallace, silently pleading with my eyes for him to calm down.

"None of this is Logan's fault. He is as much of a victim of the horrible circumstances of the last year as the rest of us," I try to explain.

Wallace doesn't look convinced, but Shae attempts to calm him by rubbing up and down his back. He visibly relaxes and I can tell when he looks at me that he isn't over this, but he will let it go for now.

I let out a deep sigh and take another look at Logan, who is not making eye contact with anyone as he sits with his elbows on both of his knees and his shoulders slumped forward. He looks so defeated and so pale and I wonder how much more he can take. The day has us both so exhausted and I know that despite the fact that I'm sure our friends still have many unanswered questions; I think that we will need to head home sooner rather than later.

I must have been deep in my own thoughts for longer than I realized because when I look away from Logan, there is a plate of food that is being placed in my hands. I'm not even sure who had gotten up and brought it in here or when.

No one knows what else to say at this point, as we are all trying to digest everything that has happened, so we all attempt to eat, even though most of us are just idly pushing our food around our plates.

After a while, Shae stands and says that it is getting late and they need to get home to relief the sitter. Wallace reluctantly stands and makes his way with her to the door. I stand to follow and when we get to the door, he pulls me into a tight hug. I return the embrace and tell him that I will call him tomorrow, as I'm sure that we aren't done discussing all of this.

After they leave, I walk back into the living room and take both of Logan's hands in mine, "Come on big boy, let's get you home," I say as I pull him to his feet.

He still hasn't said anything and I am really starting to worry.

Dick walks us to the door and I tell him goodbye and that I am sorry for leaving him with such a mess from dinner, even though he doesn't really seem phased by it.

He stops us as we near the door by grabbing onto Logan's shoulder, forcing him to turn around. He nervously says, "You aren't going anywhere, right man? I mean I'm not going to wake up in the morning and you will just be gone again right?"

Logan gives him a sad smirk and looks at me, "No, I'm not going anywhere. There's not a force in this world that would be strong enough to take me away from her again."

This seems to placate him enough for now, so he drops his hand from Logan's shoulder, but before we can walk out, he says, "Good because I will kick your ass if you ever try anything like that again," his voice sounding thick towards the end.

My heart breaks a little when I again think about how hard this must have all been on Dick too and how little he let it show.

He says a quiet, "Night Ronnie." I turn around and give him a small wave as we make our way to the car.

I gently take the keys from Logan's hand and tell him that I will drive. He reluctantly agrees and walks around to the passenger side of the car.

I climb in and look over at Logan. I take his face between both of my hands and force him to look at me. The unshed tears in his eyes are my undoing and I climb across the console and place myself in his lap. I pull him close and gently kiss his lips. I allow him to deepen the kiss, sensing that he is finding comfort in our embrace.

We pull apart, breathless as he keeps me close with his forehead resting on mine.

"Are you ready to go home?" I ask him softly.

"Yeah let's go home," he says as he releases me and helps me to climb back over the console into the driver's seat.

I start the car, but before we drive away, I look at him and say, "I'm glad because I'm not done showing you how much I missed you."

He finally smiles and takes my hand, not letting go the whole way home.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Twelve

Logan's POV

"Are you ready to go home," she asks me. "Home" doesn't even feel real right now, yet I answer her, more for her benefit than my own, taking her hand in mine and lacing our fingers together. I just can't take one more painful look from anyone today, so at this point I will do and say just about anything to not upset her.

We arrive home and I am forced to focus again on trying to act as normal as possible, but I am more than struggling. Keith had been easy to talk to. He stepped into the doting father role and more than anything he just wanted to make sure that we were both okay.

However, I had not been prepared for Dick and Wallace's reactions. The clear anger and betrayal that was on both of their faces has caused me to wonder if things will ever be the same. Dick seemed to quickly accept what had happened and my return after his brief anger with me, but I am certain that Wallace is not over this and I am not sure that he will be anytime soon.

I am again plagued with thoughts that I had this morning concerning whether or not I would be able to integrate myself back into their lives. They had spent a whole year without me and whether Veronica wants to admit it or not, things changed. The friendship that Wallace and I had seems to be hanging on by a thread, if it is still there at all and Veronica and Dick seem to have developed a relationship that I would have never expected to occur.

I would like to think that I'm not jealous, but I haven't changed that much and even though it is Dick and I know that neither him nor Veronica would ever do that to me, I still can't help but be jealous of the year that he got to spend with her that I missed out on.

How many years are we going to have to spend apart? When is enough enough? I know that I shouldn't dwell on this now, but my mind keeps going back to my deepest fear that she is going to leave me, that the initial bliss of my return will wear of and in its place will be anger. Anger that I once again robbed us of more time together. The idea alone of not being with her makes me feel like I can't breathe.

I'm quiet again as we make our way inside and I know that she can sense that I am again deep in my own thoughts. It has to be killing her that I am not voicing what I am thinking. She has never liked not being in the loop, her inquisitive mind always wanting to know everyone's innermost details, especially mine. Even knowing this, I still can't bring myself to voice what is really going on.

As we enter the apartment, we are happily greeted by Pony, who is more than ready to go out. Veronica grabs her leash and starts to head back down the stairs to take her out. I go to follow, but she stops me telling me, "I will be right back. You are clearly drained and this won't take long. You should relax and get comfortable."

I start to protest, but she is already out the door before I even have a chance to say anything. I feel that tightness in my chest and that feeling of panic that I awoke with this morning is starting to surface again.

I pace back and forth, down the small hallway, and then turn and make my way back to the front door, only to turn around and repeat the process over and over. When I feel like I have worn a path in the floor, uncertain how long I have actually been pacing, I sit on the couch. My leg is nervously bouncing up and down and I am fidgeting with my fingers, trying to not allow my panic to overtake me.

After what seems like hours, but in reality, is probably only minutes, I see the front door open and she walks back in with a smile on her face. That smile quickly disappears when she looks at me.

"Logan, what is wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong, I am fine." I attempt to calm my breathing and stop my nervous fidgeting, but it is too late. She has already seen my panicked actions, so it doesn't surprise me that she doesn't believe me.

"No, you are not fine. You are as pale as a ghost, you are sweating, and you clearly haven't stopped fidgeting since I left. What is going on?"

I hunch over, resting my elbows on my knees, bringing my hands to rest on either side of my head. I take a deep breath, trying to brace myself for the conversation that I'm not sure I am ready to have.

"Are you going to leave me?" my voice shakes as I ask the question that I am afraid of the answer to.

She quickly makes her way to me, squatting in front of me. She takes my hands off of my head and holds them in hers, squatting even further so that her face is level with mine.

"What are you talking about? What would make you think for a second that I would be leaving you? I just got you back. What could have happened today to put that idea I your head?"

I can't make eye contact with her. I can tell that she is getting angry by my lack of response, but I'm afraid that if I look at her or talk about this, then the emotions that I have been trying to hold at bay all day will overwhelm me.

"Logan?" she says in an annoyed and concerned voice.

"It's been this growing fear all day. Honestly it was a fear the whole time that I was gone and away from you."

"Wha-why?" she questions, anticipating that there is more to my answer.

"We had what seemed like five minutes of being married before I was yanked away from you and it's not like you were ecstatic about the whole marriage thing in the first place. I just can't help but think that after the dust settles, and you have time to reflect over the last year, that you will…"

"Time to reflect," she interrupts, anger visible on her face, she drops my hands and stands, starting to pace in front of me.

"You don't think that I had enough time to reflect. I had 365 days of nothing but reflection. Nights where I would cry myself to sleep because all I could think about was all of the things that we would never get to do. All of the touches that I would never get to feel, the sounds that you make in your sleep or during sex that I would never hear again. Do you have any idea what that is like?"

I try to say something, anything but she apparently isn't done. Apparently, I must have opened the flood gates as she continues with her emotional out pouring.

"I would lay in bed and agonize over the fact that one day soon, the bed and your pillow would no longer smell like you. I would hate myself for allowing this to happen. I'm a PI for Christ's sake and I didn't think to check the car after I had a bomber in there."

She's yelling now, and I am floored by her admissions. How could she have blamed herself for this? She didn't cause this. Penn planted the bomb and the Navy took advantage of that fact.

"I would think of all of the times that I should have told you that I love you and I didn't. I would remember every snarky comment that I made, every time that I ran from you, every time I pushed you away, and all of the time that we spent apart because I wasn't mature enough to deal with all of my own bullshit."

She has stopped her pacing now and is standing there with a look of absolute defeat is written all over her face. "Do you want to know what conclusion all of my reflections brought me to?" She is looking at the floor now, so I move to stand in front of her. I lift her chin, bringing my forehead down to rest on hers.

"I realized that I didn't deserve you and that's why you were taken from me. You had grown into this amazing man and I was still stuck dealing with the same issues that I was too stubborn to deal with all of those years ago. So, if either of us should be worried about someone leaving, it should be me. You deserve so much more than what I have given you."

She pushes me away from her and moves to stand further from me. The distance is only a few feet between us, but right now it feels like miles. She stands with her arms wrapped around her stomach, in what looks like an attempt to hold herself together.

She looks up at me, tears in her eyes, "I'm not going anywhere Logan. I barely survived losing you the first time, so for you to think that I would for a second ever even entertain the idea of leaving you, is just stupid. You are it for me, so I am here for as long as you will have me," she tells me, her anger subsiding as her voice is thick with emotion.

Veronica has never been one to easily talk about her feelings, so for her to so easily admit all of her pain and regret from the last year, gives me hope that she isn't going to leave me, but it isn't going to go away after just one conversation.

"So, my question to you, Logan, is how long will you have me for?"

"Veronica, do you want to know what I thought about? Any spare moment that I had was spent thinking of nothing but you. I had my own time for reflection and while I would remember everything that we have gone through and all of the horrible things that we have done to each other and for each other, I would always come to the same conclusion every time. That I would do it all and go through it all again if it meant being with you in the end. You're my forever too, Bobcat."

"Well then, what can I do to make you not worry that I am going to leave you? I don't want you to feel this way every time I walk out the door without you," she says, looking at me with pleading eyes. The desire for us to be okay written all over her face.

I move towards her, taking tentative steps in her direction. "This," I tell her as I reach her and wrap my arms around her. After a brief moment she moves her arms from around her own waist to wrap them around mine.

"Just keep doing what you are doing. I know that I am messed up right now, but I want us to get through this together. I know that it isn't fair for me to ask this because I know you have been through just as much, if not more, but I am going to need you more than ever for a while."

Her only response is to bring her lips up to mine. She licks along my bottom lip, pulling it in between her teeth, seeking entrance. I open my mouth and her tongue finds mine and a muffled moan escapes her lips at the contact. My fingers find the hem of her shirt and I lift it slightly, allowing my fingers to gently stroke against her soft skin, tracing a pattern across her stomach and down around to her back.

She breaks the kiss long enough to allow me to pull the shirt up and over her head. I throw the shirt, not caring where it lands as she is doing the same with mine. I pull her back to me, my lips finding hers as I marvel in the feeling of her chest pressed firmly against mine. My hands slide down her back, grabbing her thighs and wrapping her legs around me. I carry her towards our bedroom, kicking the door closed behind me as we make our way towards our bed.

We find comfort in each other, showing our love the best way that we know how. The one area we have never struggled with. Words aren't spoken and right now they don't really feel needed. What I need right now is to hold my beautiful naked wife in my arms, who seems to be glowing in post coital bliss.

She lays with her head on my chest, her fingers softly tickling the light brushing of hair on my stomach. My eyes are becoming heavy and I can feel her starting to drift as well.

I know that tomorrow is a new day, and it will more than likely be an interesting one, as we will now need to start learning what our new normal as husband and wife will be. We still have a lot that we need to deal with, but for now, I am content to sleep, knowing that I am right where I have always belonged.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Thirteen

Logan's POV

I awake to the sound of soft clicks as Veronica is rapidly typing on her phone. She is propped up at the head of the bed, but my head rests on her lap, my arms possessively wrapped around her waist. In between typing on her screen, her one hand drops to my hair as she idly runs her fingers through it. She hasn't noticed that I am awake yet, so I just lay there and enjoy the view. I marvel at how, even though her hair is a mess and she still has sleep lines on her face, she is still the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. I let out a soft contented sigh, which alerts her that I am awake.

"Good morning, handsome," she smiles down at me.

I prop myself up on my elbows as she brings her head down towards mine. Our lips meet and I can't help but let out a contented sigh. Her phone goes off signaling that she has a new message.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you, but I didn't want to get up and leave you here, not after what we talked about last night, so I was just answering some messages while I waited for you to wake up."

I bring my hand up, my palm on her neck, as I bring my thumb up to caress her cheek. She leans into my touch, as I continue to run my thumb over her soft skin.

"What did I do to ever deserve you?" I ask.

She's quiet this morning, so she just answers with a soft smile and moves to pick up her phone to check her messages. I change positions, so I am now propped up next to her on the bed. I move so I am close enough that we are still touching and bring my hand up to play with a strand of her hair.

"Work?" I question.

"I did check my work emails earlier, but that was Wallace," she answers a bit reluctantly.

"Oh," I respond, "How is he today? Still hating my guts?"

"He doesn't hate you, Logan. He is just having a little bit of trouble adjusting. You know how protective of me he can be."

"I know, but I thought that we had gotten past the times where I was the one, he felt he had to defend you against."

"We were, I mean we are," she quickly corrects herself.

"Are you sure, because it didn't seem like it last night. Felt like we were back in high school again with the amount of hostility that I felt from him."

"It will get better, I promise."

She leans forward and kisses me. I place one hand behind the back of her neck and snake the other around her waist, taking the opportunity to deepen the kiss. She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me closer. I pull her down so that she is laying underneath me. I have myself propped up on my elbows, so my full weight isn't crushing her tiny frame. I break the kiss, allowing us both the opportunity to catch our breathe.

"So, what are your plans for the day?" I ask, as I coyly run my hand up her leg, my fingers lightly teasing her skin.

Her leg follows my fingers, bringing it up to wrap around my waist, her foot gently laying on my lower back. I grind into her suggestively as I place feather soft kisses from her jawbone to her neck.

She grinds her hips up against me, "Mmmmm, I can't seem to think of anything important that I have to do right now," she moans, bringing her lips to mine.

I'm grateful for the fact that we both fell asleep naked allowing for there to be nothing in the way of my planned morning activities.

We both collapse back onto the bed, sweaty, sated, and trying to return our breathing to normal.

"You have no idea how much I have missed being able to wake up and enjoy ravishing you in the morning," I say as I turn to lay on my side.

I place my hand on her flat stomach, just enjoying the feel of her skin under my fingers. After our talk last night, I do feel more at ease about things, but find the only times that I feel completely at peace about it is when I am touching her. I've never really been able to keep my hands off of her, and my insecurities just make me want to touch her more.

"Mmmm, me too."

She turns so that she is laying on her side, facing me and I place a small kiss on her nose.

"So, back to your question that you asked me before you distracted me; I don't have anything I have to do today. My cases are pretty minimal right now, so work can wait. Maybe we could just stay like this all day. Just enjoy each other. When do you have to report back to the base?"

"My CO doesn't expect me for two weeks, so I am all yours for the day if we just want to lay here naked all day."

"Two weeks! Wow," she sarcastically responds. "They forcibly kidnap you, fake your death, forget to tell me about it, keep you away for a year, and then they give you a whopping two weeks."

"Veronica," I sigh, "By the time the two weeks is over, hopefully my discharge will be processed and I won't have to go back at all."

She looks a little sheepish as she responds, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Still not really grasping the fact that we won't have to deal with the Navy soon. It's been such a huge part of our lives for so long, that it still doesn't feel real to me that I will get you all to myself from now on."

"All to yourself," I smirk. "I like the sound of that."

I lean forward, closing the distance between us once again, as I place my lips on hers. I pull her so she is flush against me.

"Wait." she giggles, trying to stop my advances as I am trying to instigate round two for the morning. It has been so long since I have heard her laugh like that and I can't help but laugh with her.

"I don't want to wait," I impatiently reply as I try and bring her lips back to mine.

"But I have a few questions before you make me completely forget everything including my name with your magic tongue and fingers."

I waggle my eyebrows and fingers at her suggestively. "I'm not really in the mood for talking," I say, my voice husky with innuendo.

"No seriously, five minutes and then you can have your way with me."

"Fine," I huff. "Sometimes your inquiring mind needing to know is a definite mood killer. What do you so desperately need to know right now?"

"Hey," she brings her hand up to caress my cheek, "I didn't mean to upset you. It can wait."

"No, I'm sorry. It's fine," I try to reassure her. "I didn't mean to be an ass. What did you want to know?"

"I just wanted to know if you needed to contact anyone now to get that whole process started. I don't want you to wait if it needs to be done today. Wait, do you even have a phone? Did they give you one? I had them turn off your service after the," she pauses, not wanting to have to say it again. "It wasn't in the debris, so I just figured it was destroyed and didn't keep it active. Do you still have it?"

"Whoa, that's more than a few questions."

"I know, it's just that when you brought up your discharge, it made me realize how much I really want it to happen and I guess I just want to get it started before…" she trails off, looking away from me without continuing.

"Before what? Before I change my mind? Is that what you are afraid of?"

She still won't look at me, but I see her nod slightly, confirming what I said.

"Bobcat, I wouldn't have even mentioned it to you if I wasn't 100% sure. I would never want to hurt you like that. I'm not going to change my mind."

She looks at me, giving me a small relieved smile. "I'm really glad. I know that is selfish, but I'm so happy that this is what you want too."

"More than anything," I tell her, glad that she no longer looks upset.

"Now, in answer to your other questions, I do have my old phone, but clearly we will need to get service turned back on, which could prove to be interesting, since I am still technically dead." She cringes with that last word. I run my hands up and down her spine while I continue to answer her questions. "I can email my CO and tell him my plans for discharge, but will have to go in to fill out paperwork to formally request it, but I would really rather do that tomorrow and spend today just focusing on us. Is that ok?"

"That's more than ok," she says, pushing me flat on my back and bringing her leg over the top of my waist, so that she is straddling me.

All serious thoughts and questions are soon forgotten as we once again enjoy each other.

"I'm starving and we both should probably shower," she tells me as we lay there after, cuddling. I laugh, because I'm not sure if my legs will actually work yet.

"Well my love, we may have to leave to go and get something to eat because we still haven't made it to the store to put actual food in the kitchen. So, shower and then food?" I ask.

"Oh, Dad sent me a message saying that he went and got some basics after we left his house yesterday. He figured we would be preoccupied with other things, so he dropped them off while we were at Dick's yesterday. But we can still shower first and then you can make me an omelet."

"Oh, I'm making you an omelet, am I?"

"Yes please! I'll make it worth your while," she says, dragging me towards the shower.

Awhile later, after our shower and delicious breakfast, we find ourselves back in bed, where we spend the majority of our day. We talk and enjoy each other, only leaving long enough to take Pony for a walk on the beach, which we do together. We stroll hand in hand, before heading back.

The day is exactly what we both needed. After the trying day yesterday, I didn't realize how amazing doing absolutely nothing, but be with her, would be. It's dark now and we are enjoying our dinner in bed. We decided to just have pizza delivered and it works out perfect to just stay in bed and eat it.

"I am so full," Veronica says as she lays back on the bed, placing her hand on her stomach.

I look at the pizza box and realize that she has eaten at least half of the large pizza. I'm glad that she has eaten today. She mostly picked at her food yesterday and it was really unsettling to me that she wasn't eating, so I am happy that her appetite has returned.

I lean back, semi propped up by pillows on the bed and she moves to lay her head on my chest. I wrap my arms around her and lightly run my fingers up and down her arm. I'm not sure what time it is, but I'm tired and content after the activities of the day. She yawns, letting me know that she is just as tired too.

"Good day?" I ask.

"No," she answers. I angle my head to look at her face, and notice that she has a smirk on her face. "It was a great day."

"Yes, it was," I agree with her.

"So, how about tomorrow we work on getting you a phone again. We should stop by the base and maybe by my office too."

"Sounds good," I sleepily reply. My eyes getting heavier by the second.

"Maybe I could see if Wallace wants to meet us somewhere for lunch too?" She is sounding awfully drowsy herself and I'm not sure how much longer either one of us will be able to keep our eyes open.

"Yeah we could do that, if you think he would be willing too."

"Oh, I think I can convince him. He's not immune to my head tilt either."

"Ok, that's what we will do tomorrow then." I place a couple of kisses on the top of her head. "But let's sleep now. I'm so tired."

"Me too," she yawns.

She places a couple of chaste kisses on my chest, "I love you, Logan."

I can't help the huge smile that appears on my face. "I love you too."

It's not long after that we both fall asleep with peaceful smiles on our faces.


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Fourteen

Veronica's POV

"Umm babe, where are all of my shirts?" Logan says, sticking his head out of the closet.

"What do you mean? They are still in there hanging up," I say as I am walking back into our bedroom. My hair is still wet from my shower and I am still in my towel. We are both trying to get ready to leave so we can start the busy day that we have ahead of us.

I know I should have packed up his clothes and not left them hanging in the closet or neatly placed in his drawers in the dresser, but I could never bring myself to box up his things. Everyone told me I should on multiple occasions, especially recently. The more time that passed, the more everyone started to encourage me to move on and they all said the first step in moving on would be to pack up his clothes and belongings, but I just couldn't do it, and now I am glad I didn't.

"I see some of them, but I am still missing several. Any idea where those could be?"

I know exactly what shirts he is talking about. They were favorites of mine for him to wear. They were also the shirts I kept under the edge of the bed, where I could grab them in the middle of the night and slip them on or cuddle them close to me. The shirts I could never bring myself to wash, even though I found them in the bottom of the dirty laundry after everything happened.

I walk to the closet and pretend to vaguely look around for his shirts while I am grabbing my own clothes. I get dressed, still pretending to search for his shirts. I'm about to answer and admit yet another embarrassing, girlie habit that I had in his absence and show him where his shirts are hidden, but luckily, I am saved by a knock at the door.

"I got it," I say as I quickly make my way to the door. However, my relief for the distraction is short lived when I open the door to reveal Leo. 'Well shit, this isn't going to be good,' I think to myself.

I haven't even said hello, but that doesn't seem to matter because he starts in pretty much as soon as I open the door.

"Listen Veronica, I know that this may seem a bit insensitive on my part and you may not think it has been long enough, but I have been thinking and I think it would be good for you to get out and do something. With that being said, I would like to have dinner with you and was wondering what you thought about that. I know that I'm not Logan, but we were good together once upon a time and I think we could be again."

To say that I am shocked is an understatement. I am literally standing there with my mouth hanging open. Where in the hell did this come from? I had not seen Leo for almost a year, the last time being when he stopped by shortly after Logan's funeral to tell me how sorry he was.

I don't even know how to respond to that. Even if Logan had not come back, Leo would still be way off course if he thought I would want to go out with him again. It just makes it even worse that Logan has actually come back.

As I am thinking that exact thought about Logan, he walks up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me back to his chest. He pulls me flush against him and rests his chin on the top of my head.

"Well Leo," he says, "don't you think it is a little awkward to be asking my wife out. I mean it was bad enough when you showed up on our doorstep with a pizza and that was before we were married. Now that we are married, it makes it even worse."

"What the fuck?" Leo gasps.

"That seems to be the exact same reaction we have been getting for days now," I say, trying to lighten the situation.

It's no secret that Logan never appreciated my spending time with Leo, and I'm sure him showing up here and asking me to move on with him, has only made that worse.

"Listen Leo, not to be rude, but I'm really kind of tired of explaining this again and again and Veronica and I actually have a full day ahead of us, so if you don't mind, I'm really not in the mood to get into it. All you really need to know is I am home now, therefore, Veronica is not on the market or in need of your help to move on."

I turn to glare at him. Nothing like an old boyfriend to bring out the jealous asshole in my husband.

Leo still looks stunned, not that I blame him. Here he thought he could come and try and convince me to go out with him, only to find that my husband, who everyone thought was dead, is actually alive and well.

"So, umm turns out Logan didn't actually die in the explosion and I just found out a couple of days ago and I'm not really sure what else to say," I try to explain.

"Well, I guess I should be going then. I'm sorry. If I would have known..." he trails off, not finishing his thought.

"Leo it's fine. You didn't know. You don't have to go," I tell him.

"No really, Veronica, I think that it would be best if I just leave."

"Yeah, I think that would be a great idea Leo," Logan says, still clearly acting like a jealous teenager.

"I'll see you, sometime," Leo lamely says as he turns around and walks down the stairs.

"Was that necessary Logan?"

"Yeah, I think it was Veronica! How many times has he stopped by in the last year? Did something happen between the two of you?"

"You're kidding me, right? No, nothing happened, you idiot! That was only the second time I have seen him in a year. The first time being right after your funeral and I barely said two words to him the whole time he was here. I was clearly not in the right frame of mind then."

I walk away from him, more than a little angry about what he is trying to imply. How could he think that I would be able to move on so quickly? I walk into the bedroom and pull the shirts that he was looking for out from under the bed.

He has followed me into the bedroom, by this point, so I hold the shirts out for him to take.

"These are what you were looking for right?"

He looks a little puzzled, but he takes the shirts anyways.

"Everyone has been telling me for months now that I should pack up your things. They would say I couldn't begin to heal with all of your things surrounding me. I couldn't do it though. I found these shirts in the laundry. They were my favorites you know. I kept them under there and would pull them out when I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming after the nightmares where I would relive your death over and over. You weren't here to hold me and chase away the nightmares, so I would pull the shirts out and cuddle them close until I could fall back asleep. If I wasn't even able to box up your things, do you really think anything could have actually happened with Leo?"

He wraps his arms around me in a hug and I wrap mine around his waist. I rest my head on his chest and he runs one hand down my hair.

"No, I don't. I'm sorry. I don't know what is wrong with me. Can we just forget about this? Are you ready to go?"

I sigh and look up at him. He looks down at me and I place a soft kiss on his lips.

"Yeah pretty much. Give me five minutes and I will be."

Veronica, we are okay, right?"

"Of course, we are," I say, kissing him one more time before letting go to finish getting ready.

We get Logan's phone working, which was the first thing on our agenda. Logan calls the base and sets up a time for him to go in and speak with his CO about his discharge. That call puts us one step closer to being done with this whole ordeal.

"So, are we meeting Wallace for lunch?" Logan asks when he hangs up the phone.

"Yeah, we are supposed to meet him around 1:00."

We walk hand and hand deciding that we can just walk to lunch because we are close to where we are meeting Wallace.

"How do you think he is going to be today?" Logan nervously asks.

"I think he will have had time to calm down and so he will be better today."

I know that Logan is nervous about seeing Wallace again. He is still struggling with being back himself and the reactions of everyone else. We have been so preoccupied with dealing with telling everyone and the issues that came about as a result that we haven't even really had a chance to talk about what happened to him while he was gone.

I don't even want to think about all of the possibilities of things that he could have seen and done and the emotional toll that those probably took on him. I know he says that he is alright, but I would think he has to be struggling with it and I worry he is keeping it bottled up because he doesn't want to burden me with it. I make a mental note to make him talk to me about it, however, now is not the time as we are at the restaurant and I can see Wallace is already there waiting for us.

"Hey Wallace," he stands when we get close to the table that he has already been seated at and I give him a small hug.

Logan not knowing what to do simply gives a slight wave and we all move to sit down. I'm really not sure where to start or what to say. All that I really want is for things to be okay between these two. I was so glad when Logan and Wallace got over their issues and became friends and I would really like for things to go back to that.

"Listen man," Wallace starts, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "I'm sorry about the other night. I was just so shocked and I couldn't seem to let go of the anger that I felt. After we left, Shae and I talked about everything we found out that night and I know it wasn't your fault the way that things turned out, but you have to understand where I was coming from too."

I look to Logan who nods and looks down at the table. Only briefly making eye contact. I take his hands, lacing our fingers together. His thumb instantly starts to rub across my knuckles.

"I get it. I really do," Logan finally responds. "I can't imagine what it was like to watch her have to go through that. Honestly, I have been trying to not think about it since I got back. I feel nothing but guilt for what I put her and all of you through. I had no idea and if there was a way for me to go back in time and change it all, I would, but I can't."

Wallace holds up his hand, putting a stop to Logan's guilt induced ramble. "I was mad Logan, but now that I have had time to think about it, I'm really glad that you are alright. I'm so glad that I don't have to watch my best friend suffer through her life without you. We all kept hoping that with each new day she would slowly start to get better, but that never happened. It was just one day after another of the same sad, defeated Veronica. I don't think I realized just how much she loved you until I had to watch her lose you. We didn't just lose you that day, we lost her too."

I look between two of the most important men in my life and once again think how lucky I am to have them. I know that most of the time, I don't deserve them. I really need to work on showing them how much they both mean to me. I never even realized the impact that my sadness was having on Wallace.

"So, are we cool then?" Logan asks.

"Yeah, that is my point in all of this. As long as she is happy, then we are cool. And I guess I kind of missed you too."

Logan exhales a breath I hadn't realized he had been holding and smiles.

"Welcome home, man," Wallace says, standing up.

Logan stands too and gives Wallace a one-handed hug.

"So, boys, are we ready to eat because I am starving?"

They both look at me and laugh. "What?" I say. Not really understanding what is so funny.

"Now that is the Veronica that I have missed," Wallace says through his laughter.

Logan kisses my cheek and I smile at them both as we all pick up our menus and enjoy our lunch.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N Thank you so much for all of the reviews, follows, and favs. They are what definitely keeps me writing. I am currently looking for a beta to bounce ideas off of, so if anyone is interested, please pm me. Thanks again. Much LoVe to all of my readers.**

**Disclaimer: **I have never nor will ever own any of the characters. They belong to Rob Thomas. If I did own them, I would never have done what he did.

Chapter Fifteen

Veronica's POV

"Logan, what are you looking for?" I say as I walk into the bathroom.

We should have already left, but we are running late and he is still in there trying to get ready. We are all supposed to be meeting at Dick's for a belated celebration of our marriage. The party has also turned into a "Welcome home/Glad you aren't dead/Congrats on your discharge party." Everyone is supposed to be there and I am honestly excited to see them all.

It has been three weeks since our emotional reunion on the beach and there are times when it still doesn't seem real that this is my life. It has been beyond amazing to be able to just enjoy our time with each other without there being a deadline on our time together.

In the three weeks since Logan has been home, we have spent as much time together as we possibly could. Sure, I worked, finishing up the few cases that I had when he returned, but deciding to take a little time off and not take any new ones for a couple of weeks.

Logan of course had to go to the base to complete all of his paperwork for his discharge and even managed to convince them to put a rush on it, so his career with the Navy officially ended two days ago. To say that a giant weight was lifted off of my shoulders is an understatement.

While we did have to spend a little time apart, dealing with our own jobs, most of our time was simply spent enjoying being "newlyweds."

We would spend hours making love, it was like we were teenagers all over again, never seeming to get enough of each other. I fell even more in love with Logan than I already was during that time, not because of the love making, that has never been a problem, but because of the times in between when we would spend hours just talking to each other.

It was during those times that Logan opened up about as many of the details from our year apart as he was allowed to give me. It wasn't the who or the where, that was important, because he couldn't tell me, but it was him opening up about how he felt about everything that he had to do. I knew that the year had created emotional scars, but it felt like him opening up to me was the beginning of him being able to heal and hopefully let go of some of the guilt that he was carrying around as a result.

It was also during those times when I got a true appreciation for just how strong Logan really is. Not physical strength, although he is certainly not lacking in that area either, but emotional strength. I know he would argue and say I am the strong one, but he would fall asleep and I would lie awake, looking at him and think about every time life had seemed to deal him, for lack of a better term, "the shit end of the stick," and how he always seemed to make it through and come out a better person because of it.

Life had dealt him a lot of things that would break someone else. His girlfriend was murdered at sixteen by his abusive father, who she was having an affair with, his mother committed suicide, he was framed for the murder of Felix, then years later, Carrie, and I walked out on him so many times that I don't know why he would even want to be a part of my life, but he loved me through all of it.

It was then I realized I was strong because he gave me the strength to be. He was always pushing me to be a better version of myself and I seemed to always push against it, but it never stopped him from trying.

We spent lots of time on the beach as well. Sometimes we would play with Pony, others we would simply sit on the beach and enjoy a sunrise or a sunset. Logan would sit in the sand and I would sit between his legs, leaning back and resting on his chest while his arms wrapped protectively around me. There were other times where Pony and I would sit alone and watch Logan as he surfed. He seemed to find peace while out in the ocean and I felt content just to watch him as he floated across the water.

It was the announcement that Logan's honorable discharge had gone through which prompted our friends to insist on throwing us a party to celebrate, a party that quickly turned into a time to praise all of the things we had yet to celebrate. The same party that we are currently running late for.

"Logan?" I question again as I stand in the doorway of the bathroom looking at him as he stands holding something in his hand.

"I was looking for shaving cream," he says, "but I found this instead."

He turns the small rectangular box towards me that he was staring at and I realize what he is holding.

"Is there something that we need to talk about?" Logan asks, handing the box that clearly says First Response Pregnancy Test on it.

"No, Logan it is not what you are thinking," I start to explain. "I'm not pregnant."

"But you thought you might be? There is a test missing, so I know you took one," he says.

"Not recently," I quietly murmur, hoping that he will just drop it and not make me explain further.

"What is that supposed to mean, Veronica?"

"I really don't want to talk about it. Can we please just go? We are late already. We should have left ten minutes ago," I plead, trying to beg him with my eyes to just drop it. However, one look at him let's me know we won't be leaving until I explain why it was in the cabinet in our bathroom.

I grab his hand and walk out of the bathroom, pulling him behind and pushing him to sit down on the couch. We are not going to have this conversation in the bathroom. Instead of sitting with him, I choose to pace in front of him. I wish he had never found the stupid box. This isn't something I wanted to discuss with him and I had honestly forgotten I had thrown the unused test that came in the two pack, down there.

"It was three, maybe four weeks after our wedding day, I'm not really sure how long exactly," I start to explain, still pacing and not making eye contact with him. "Time all seemed to blur together then, so I'm not sure exactly how long it had been. I was having a particularly bad day, and I had broken a picture of the two of us when I threw it against the wall. I was in the bathroom looking for those small garbage bags you always bought for the garbage can in the bathroom, so I could sweep the glass into one and take it outside. It was while I was looking for the bags that I came across a box of tampons under the sink."

I walk over to the couch and sit next to him. I'm trying to not get emotional as I remember the day and tell him the story. He places a comforting hand on the small of my back, his thumb making small circles, and I continue my story.

"The box completely threw me off. I hadn't even thought about my period, it just never occurred to me to think about how long it had been since I even needed them, but when I saw the box and I thought about it, I realized it had been at least six weeks since my last one. I panicked, I literally just sat on the bathroom floor and stared at the box in my hands, the glass and the broken picture frame mess completely forgotten."

"You thought you might be pregnant?"

"I was never late, so it was the only thing that kept playing through my mind. My thoughts were all over the place. I never wanted kids. I had a horrible excuse for a mother and I never wanted to turn into her, so not having children to disappoint was the easiest way for that to happen. I used to watch you with Noah and I would internally freak. I could tell just by watching you it was something you wanted and at the time, it just felt like, if you were to ask me about kids, it would just be one more thing for me to tell you no about, just like your initial proposal."

"Veronica, I…"

"No, Logan. Please just let me finish. I was angry about the whole situation. I had lost you and now I might be pregnant and if I was, then I was going to have to raise the baby as a single widow. I just sat there for who knows how long, but after a while I went and bought the tests. I was on autopilot at that point, I couldn't even tell you where I bought them from or how much time passed, but before I knew it, the test was sitting on the counter, and I was waiting for the result. I set a timer and just left it sitting on the counter. It was while I was waiting for the dreaded result when all of the sudden another thought came to mind, if I was pregnant then it would be a part of you. I don't know why it took me so long to think about that, but once I did, it was all I could think about. In that short three-minute time frame, I became excited, even though you were gone, I might be growing a small piece of you. I imagined a little brown eyed boy, who looked so much like you and it gave me a sense of peace. I knew it wouldn't be easy, this constant reminder of you and everything I had lost, but it was, in my mind, your final gift to me. It felt like it was your way of making sure I wasn't alone, but the timer went off and the test was negative. I just felt so empty once again. All I could do was lay down on the bathroom floor and cry. I cried myself to sleep on the rug on the cold bathroom floor, grieving something that never was, but more importantly, something that could never be."

I finished recounting the story behind the little pink box Logan had found in the bathroom, impressed I had managed to make it through the whole thing without even shedding a tear.

"So, what happened? Why were you late?" Logan hesitantly asks me.

"Who knows. Stress probably. It didn't really matter to me at that point. Eventually I started and I didn't really care about the facts behind the "why" of why I was late."

"Veronica, I don't even know what to say. I feel like I have overused I'm sorry at this point. You shouldn't have had to go through that alone."

He pulls me into his lap and I happily curl up against him, enjoying the comfort that his arms provide as I lay my head on his chest. We sit in silence for a few minutes, just holding each other, but Logan is the first one to break the silence.

"What about now?" he asks. "Are kids something you want now?"

"I had a lot of time to think about everything while you were gone and while the idea of kids is still scary to me, it's not something that I don't want anymore. I'm still worried about what kind of mom I would be, but the idea of sharing that with you, makes me know that we would be able to figure it out together. If it's something that you want. I sound like a damn Hallmark card," I scoff. "However, I just got you back and I'm not really ready to share you just yet, so it's not something that I would want to start on right now. If that makes sense."

"That makes sense." He hugs me tighter and kisses my temple.

I turn and kiss him on his lips, allowing myself to get a little carried away with the kiss. He starts to laugh, his lips still pressed against mine.

"We are so late now," he says, still chuckling against my lips.

At that moment both of our phones chime, letting us know we have a new text message. "It's my dad," I tell him. "He says that we better get there soon. Apparently, Dick keeps coming up with lots of dirty reasons why we might be running late and he is about to remind Dick he still carries a gun."

Logan laughs again. "Mine is from Dick. His exact words are 'Dude, you and Ronnie better get here soon because Mr. Mars keeps giving me dirty looks and putting his hand on his holster. I don't think he likes me."

I stand up, grab both of his hands in mine and pull him up to standing. I drop one of his hands and start to walk, pulling him behind me saying, "Come on lover boy. We better go save my dad and your best friend."

"I thought you said that he was your friend too."

"I refuse to claim him when he is acting like an idiot."

"If that is the case, then you probably never claim him."

"Exactly," I say. "Pony let's go girl."

We make our way to the door, but Logan stops me and pulls me into a hug. He places both hands on my face, bringing his lips to mine.

"I know that we didn't get to finish our discussion, and we definitely will, but I just wanted to tell you that I love you," he says, kissing me one more time.

"I love you too."

We head out the door to go and meet our crazy "family" and celebrate the fact that we still have Logan and things that we all thought could never happen are still a possibility.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Logan's POV

We walk hand in hand toward her father's house, the feel of her hand in mine still seems so surreal. Even though I have been home for three weeks now, there are still moments where I feel like I am going to wake up from this dream and realize that none of this has been real. However, every morning I wake up and she is still wrapped up in my arms and a feeling of peace overcomes me that I never thought I would have.

I don't think the reality of my new life has really kicked in yet. Being a part of the Navy has been such a huge and defining part of my life for so long that it is still surreal to me that I am no longer a Naval Intelligence Officer. Add on top of that, the fact that Veronica is my wife and it is like I am living a completely different life than I thought I would ever have.

If you would have asked me seven years ago if I thought that Veronica and I would be married and having discussions about babies, I would have laughed in your face. I'm not going to lie, finding that box of pregnancy tests with one missing this morning did cause me a moment or two of panic.

Being a father is something that utterly terrifies me. I was given some really shitty genetics from my father and I would never want to turn out like him. I would rather die than put Veronica and my children through what my mom and I endured at that hands of my father.

I know that Veronica would say that I could never be like him, and deep down I think that I know that too, but that doesn't mean that the fear doesn't still exist. However, even with all those fears, the idea of having a child and watching that little life grow inside Veronica, is quickly becoming something that I really want.

I'm not sure if Veronica is ready yet though and the last thing that I am going to do is do or say anything that will push her away. For now, I am content to know that it is something that is on the table and not completely out of the question. We have so much to celebrate already and I'm just grateful for the fact that we have time together.

Don't get me wrong, I still have lots of worries that plague me daily. What will I do for work? Will I be able to handle Veronica constantly putting herself in danger for her cases? Will our happy bubble eventually pop, and will she start to push me away again?

I try not to let myself dwell on them and I don't vocalize them to her right now. I don't want to put any doubts in her mind, and I want things to continue just the way they have for the last three weeks. In ways, I feel like we have grown more as a couple in the last three weeks, than we did ever before.

I feel her gently squeeze on our entwined fingers and I realize that we have reached her dad's front door, but we are just standing on the porch.

"Penny for your thoughts?" she quietly asks me.

"Only good things," I say trying to give her a reassuring smile.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm honestly just thinking about how happy I am that we have so much to be celebrating today."

She smiles and goes up on her tip toes to place a gentle kiss on my lips. My smile grows even bigger as I pull her into a quick hug, enjoying the feel of her pressed up against me in a gentle embrace.

We make our way into the house and are greeted by enthusiastic cheers. The small group of our closest friends quickly approach, giving hugs and issuing congratulations and welcome homes.

Dick was the last to approach. Veronica was still standing next to me, her hand in mine, but by now she was engrossed in a conversation with her dad and Wallace and not really paying attention to what was going on with Dick and me. We slap hands and give each other a quick one-armed hug.

"Man, I am so glad you are here. Next time try and be on time. I know you were gone for a year, but you have had three weeks of 'catching up,' he uses air quotes to emphasis his point. Mr. Mars was literally looking like he was going to choke me," Dick says with a side glance at Keith.

"Probably because he was tired of hearing the many different ways that you keep implying about why we were late," Veronica somehow interjects, even though she was still having a conversation with her Dad and Wallace. I don't know how she does that sometimes.

"What? It's not like Mr. Mars doesn't know that you and Ronnie have been bumping uglies every chance that you get in the last three weeks," Dick mockingly jokes, but I can tell that there is a little bit of hurt there.

I haven't spent enough time building back my friendships since I have been home, and I think that it may be time to start doing just that. I have been so focused on making up for lost time with Veronica that I may have unintentionally been neglecting the other important people in my life and that is something that I need to remedy now. I would never want Dick to think that him and his friendship weren't important to me, so I think it is time that I start making this up to one of my oldest friends.

"Hey how about you and I go surfing in the morning?" I ask with a hopeful expression on my face.

"Just you and me? Ronnie won't be joining us?" Dick questions in a skeptical tone of voice.

"Dick, since when have you known me to go surfing?" Veronica remarks, her conversation company having moved on for the moment in search of food.

"It's not like we are joined at the hip. We can go surfing for a few hours without her," I say looking at Veronica for confirmation, who gives a slight nod in agreement.

"The hip is definitely not where I think the two of you are joined most of the time," Dick comments, giving me an exaggerated eyebrow waggle.

"I heard that," Keith exclaims at the same time as Veronica says, "Seriously Dick."

Dick at least has good enough sense to look sheepish as he replies, "Surfing sounds like an awesome idea for the morning. Let's head out early so we can hopefully catch some good waves."

As we finish making our plans for the morning, Veronica wanders over to the food to make herself a plate. Not surprising, since my Bobcat's appetite has returned now that I am home. She is finally starting to put back on some of the weight that she lost in my absence and I am so glad that she is looking like the healthier version of herself, as opposed to her barely there form from weeks ago.

Dick walks with me over towards the others and as I walk behind Veronica, I wrap my arms around her waist from behind, resting my chin on the top of her head. She snuggles into me, her back resting against my front.

Dick starts to open his mouth to say something smart ass, I am sure, but he is cut off with a warning from Keith, "Not a word Richard, I mean it."

We all try and hide our chuckles, but we are mostly unsuccessful, which just adds to Keith's irritation with Dick.

Veronica turns slightly in my arms, looking up at me as she asks me, "Everything ok with the two of you?"

She is so perceptive of my feelings and emotions that she must be able to somehow sense the guilt I am trying to eradicate by making plans with Dick for surfing.

"Yeah everything is fine, just think it is time to mend the rest of the broken relationships in my life," I explain to her.

"Nothing is broken," she corrects me. "Just might need a little mending for the two of you is all."

"Ok, not broken then, but it will be nice to get back into the routine of seeing everyone like we did before." I kiss the top of her head, trying to show her with my actions just how much her understanding means to me. She releases a contented sigh before stepping away from me to return to her plate.

I see little Noah running around and gladly scoop him up to play, giving Shae and Wallace a chance to eat without having to chase the little one around. I couldn't believe how much he had grown in my absence and it took him a little bit of time to warm up to me again, but we have quickly become fast friends again.

Noah and I play while everyone else eats and then Shae comes and gets him, instructing me to eat.

The rest of the afternoon and evening are spent simply enjoying being with everyone, enjoying conversations and reminiscing. It feels so good to be able to just relax and spend time with all the people that I love. It is so easy to take things like a simple conversation with your loved ones for granted until you can't do it anymore. This is something that I have desperately missed.

Veronica spends most of the time either sitting right beside me, or on my lap, which is just where I want her. Dick stays close as well, and we spend some much-needed time catching up and are able to easily slip back into our friendly banter.

Before the night is over, we make plans with Wallace and Shae to have dinner this week and make plans with Keith as well. Looking around at all of them just reaffirms my decision to be discharged from the Navy. I know that this is where I am meant to be.

Slowly everyone starts to head home. Veronica and I try to stay and help clean up, but Keith insists that it was a party for us, and we shouldn't have to clean up. After a few minutes of innocent daddy/daughter bickering, Veronica concedes, and we get ready to head home.

Veronica hugs her dad goodbye and I am pleasantly surprised by the hug that I receive from Keith as well.

"I know that I have said this before, but I am so glad that you are home son," Keith tells me while he hugs me.

I find that my throat is a little tight with emotion. I'm not sure if it is because he said that he is glad that I am home or the fact that he called me son, but I find it difficult to form words.

"Thank you, sir," I choke out.

He nods as he steps away, walking us to the door. I glance at Veronica and notice a glisten in her eyes.

She takes my hand and we walk to the car, Keith waving goodbye from the door.

As I drive home, I look over at her and notice how her eyes are starting to droop.

"Sleepy?" I ask her.

"A little," she sighs contentedly. "But it was such a good day, even though I had to share you for a little while today."

"Gotten a little spoiled the last three weeks, have you?" I tease.

"I do enjoy having you all to myself," she snickers sleepily.

"Are you going to stay awake or am I going to have to carry you to bed?"

"I can guarantee that if you carry me to bed, sleeping will be the last thing on my mind," she teases.

"Well then I will most definitely be carrying you inside when we get home."

"Is that right, oh husband of mine?" She giggles from the passenger seat.

"You bet your sexy little ass it is wife," I reply seductively.

"I love it when you talk dirty," she says as we make the final turn towards home.

"God, I love you," I bring her hand to my lips and kiss her fingers.

"I love you too," she says before she pretends to fall asleep so I will "have" to carry her inside.


End file.
